ignited
by Aiko Isari
Summary: Ayame is used to jumping from shadows. Aevium however, is a large shadow determined to pin her down. First her mother, then her Eevee, then her secrets. They're going to have to try harder than monsters to kill her. Because she's a monster all her own. A Rejuvenation AU. Warnings inside!
1. Chapter 1 - Pieces of Myself

_Warnings: Implied past harm to a child, hard-of-hearing character._

 _REVISED 1-28-18 for continuity reasons_

* * *

 **Chapter One – Pieces of Myself**

 _Oh child of the mystics, doll of the ancients, are you here for glory or freedom?_

Fingers traced the words on a silver bracelet as the computer finished booting up. Its owner made a face, but that was all, letting it dangle uselessly on their wrist once more.

"Hello and welcome! Judging on that GPS thingamabob at my right, you're close by aren't you? You're so close to Aevium you can taste it! Aevium here has a real challenge waiting, with eightee-"

Ayame groaned and pressed mute on the computer, letting the captioned text go by on the screen. She made another note in her identification documents, lest she ended up getting bogged up in hours of customs for not being precise. Aevium, a mysteriously fragmented region with a difficulty spike worthy of that demolished Reborn City to the south. For new trainers, it was usually a death sentence, or at the very least a recipe for going broke. Ayame looked at her freshly worn clothes and the nicks on her music player and sighed out loud. She was halfway there already.

Next, to her, someone glared and made a disapproving noise. Ayame raised a pink eyebrow and they turned away, leaving her staring at clean, creamy white walls and pokeball shaped computer monitors. She smiled a bit at that and went back to her screen, scribbling notes of badge requirements. All regions that had an official league (or the trial system in the case of Alola and some _other_ region west of Sinnoh and that one sunken frontier place) had a material in trainer IDs that made sound-based waves come from pokeballs so that the captured pokemon would listen depending on their rank and license type. Or so some idiot with a peak pushed gyarados didn't try using it at the first trainer battle and get eaten for their efforts. Or something. Her teacher had considered it rewriting pack rules or something similar. The Kimono Girls were a little old-fashioned, according to her mother.

"Hey, are you listening?" The words flew up on the screen in all capital letters, followed by the time delay of the scout's irritated face.

Ayame winced and turned the volume back on. "Yeah, I am. Sorry, Miss Amanda."

On the other side of the screen, the young woman let out a grunt of approval, brushing her black jacket free of non-existent crumbs. "You'd better be. You're going to the big leagues. Tohjo's got nothing on this place anymore. At least in terms of competitive play. I still don't know what they feed you poor kids."

Ayame made a face and decided to ignore the potential disagreement. "You really don't have to do this, ma'am. Just because my mother asked you to-"

The woman waved a hand at the screen, black waves dancing about her fingers. "Come on beanie, none of that. We're getting your mum's advertising. Besides, we make these calls to everybody. You just got me 'cause I asked. Now, come on, let's finish this before either of us go grey, mmkay?"

Ayame grunted agreement, toying with her pink hair. She rubbed the dark smudges under her eyes and nodded jerkily. "Okay, what do you need from me?"

On the other side of the video call, Amanda's eyes took on a slightly glazed over look as she glanced at a different window. "Okay, I've got your transfer documents, but you know, the extras are necessary. Hometown and region?"

"Ecruteak, Western Tohjo." There was a slight inhale that Ayame made herself ignore as the information continued on.

"Hair, skin, date of last physical sets with any notable comments?"

"Pink, olive or dark, and June seventeenth, with freshly healed arm break from tree fall, vision unchanged. Emergency inhaler unneeded," Ayame paused to breathe a little harder than usual just to be sure. She kept her voice as disinterested as she possibly could. "Wrist has been removed from splint, the doctor has declared me healthy enough for travel." _Physically, at any rate._

There was a pause like Amanda was containing a snort. Then she continued. "License type, parent and emergency contact information?"

"League excursion permitted by the Kimono Girls Theater, three-year visa with an open extension request at any pokemon center or League sanctioned building." She proceeded to rattle off her mother's contact number, then the rest of them, toying with her white hat in her lap. It looked cute enough, sure, but anything that complimented her hair-

 _"Why are you so weird?"_

Never lasted long.

She looked back at Amanda, who grinned. "Are we done?"

"Done as a tauros steak." Amanda made to close the window. "We'll be notified when the Oceania docks at port. Get your card from the clerk once we're off the phone and head on out. I'll meet you at the Gearen Lab when you get there. Ignore the strangers, keep that knife I know you're _totally not_ smuggling in in your boot and don't look ready to be cowed."

Ayame made a face, cheeks puffing out. "Wasn't supposed to get caught."

"Your mum's a celebrity." Amanda winked. "Anyway, I've got about three more clients to run through the entire speech with since people don't put their paperwork in right. Catch you later. Remind your mum she's got a seven-o-clock dinner with us."

When the screen turned black, Ayame happily pulled the black earbuds free from the computer and hopped from the stool. She didn't even get to stretch before some ten-year-old took her place. For a moment, Ayame blinked dumbly. Then she shook her head. She had no right to complain about some kid jumping into a death trap. She was twelve.

At least she understood the death trap was what it was. She hoped.

With a small grin, she returned her earbud jack to the pocket of her dress and back into its receiver. The world began to murmur instead of be a whisper in her ears, and she sounded out each noise under her breath as she walked to the table and requested politely with her hands. Or what she hoped was polite anyway. At the puzzled face, she cleared her throat and said, "Sorry, I'd like to get my trainer card please."

The woman smiled as fast as possible. "Oh! Sorry. We're not trained in Tohjan Sign on this ship. Only Kalosian and Unovan. The Tohjan course isn't until next season."

Ayame nodded. "'S okay. It's not common knowledge." Which it wasn't. Kanto, holding the Elites and Champions that started the League system in this regional collective (Was it a collective? She had no idea.), was kind of awkward about sending out-of-region resources. By awkward, she meant bad. Kalos was only better by virtue of people being obsessed with the internet and memory-making, the oversharing weirdoes. She rubbed her wrist to avoid looking at the woman again and seeing something like pity.

The woman sighed, blue hair dancing messily out of her face. "No, trust me, we have so many people coming on and off to register and people have no idea. Aevium is not the most health-positive-"

"Please." Ayame smiled like her mother did to reporters. She had seen it a lot over the past year. "No need to do all of that bowing or anything. I've got workarounds." Which she did. And listening to people's activism speeches got old on good days. This was a mediocre day.

The woman giggled. "Right, sorry. Didn't mean to push… hang on." She reached into the printer where the plastic card slid out of its slot. "All right, get this verified when we get to Gearen, and you'll be all set. Also, a general word of advice, don't eat out in East Gearen unless someone else pays." At the raised eyebrow, the woman's grin widened. "Just trust me, you're safer off."

Ayame smiled back and saluted with two fingers. "Got you. Thanks."

She was all too happy to leave that conversation.

She left the application room and ended up face first into dazzling white fabric and layers of pink hair soft as a well-kept litten. Pale arms encircled her before she could choke out a no. Ayame squawked instead. "Mum. Space, space."

"Sorry honey!" Her mother stepped back, smiling her usual too-wide smile for the public, the one that matched her creamy skin. "You just took so long that I was getting worried. What if you missed the banquet?"

Honestly, that would have been the least of her problems. She didn't need to be paraded around as Nancy of Nimbasa's daughter, the daughter of the famous shooting star who had worked with anyone from Sabrina to Diantha to at one point _Green Oak_ on a minor gym leader expo tournament. It was all because of Green Oak that Ayame was here on this ship with her mother if she thought about it.

"Ama just wanted to talk, that's all." Ayame smiled back at her, avoiding the eyes of other passengers who took them in, lingered on Ayame's olive skin and the red, too red color of her eyes. "She said to remind you we have dinner with her tonight."

Her mother whined and mimed driving her foot into the carpeted floor. "All these meetings~ Where's my manager when we need him?"

"You left Curtis in Unova, mum," Ayame pointed out.

She giggled behind a slender, manicured hand. Ayame was suddenly incredibly aware of the rough calluses and nubbed fingernails of her own. "True." She left her arms loosely around her daughter's waist, not letting go just yet. "So, are you all set?"

"Mmhm." Ayame made herself smile back again without shifting away, itching under the feather-light touch. "When we get to Gearen and get all taken care of, it'll be nice and official. I'll go exploring the next day, probably."

Her mother beamed all the brighter, like a light bulb with settings. "Excited, huh?"

"Can't just be your daughter forever. I've got miko advancements to make and the like." At the way her mother's face fell, Ayame made to lift her hands in a consoling gesture. "It's not personal, mum. I just need a little space."

How could she just accept a person she barely knew after all?

Her mother had been around in video messages, in rare gifts and once every other movie visits where she cooed about her daughter getting strong and smart and good. Up until the past year, she had lived with her guardian and his husband and in the Theatre's comfy cushions. That was up until six months ago, where Nancy had just swooped in and arrived, dragging Ayame away just after her teachers had permitted her to get a starter of her own and journey to make a difference, to leave a mark on the world. And then Johto had just been out of the question after that.

Nancy had shown her to a whole host of people, people she had heard of, people she hadn't, pokemon she hadn't thought she'd ever get to meet, book after book of information passed into her hands until Ayame, in a fit of homesick rage, had thrown a guidebook against a hotel wall and cried for the parents she knew.

The next day, mum had passports to Aevium in the works, just like that.

Mom reached and stroked one lock of her hair, smoothing it down. Ayame twitched but let her, ignoring the way her face fell further. "I suppose you're right," the woman said with a sigh. "Still! We've got some time yet. Go explore the ship, I have to go to another meeting. Give the captain my regards, okay? He really has been looking forward to meeting you."

Ayame hesitated at first, but then she nodded. She could do that. She could talk to a couple people, wander around and not stay in the corner. Yeah, that was fine.

"I'll probably take a nap too," she added, mostly to console herself, give her something to look forward to.

Her mother patted her cheek. "You and your sleep. Be good." She released her and skipped away, a pokeball now dancing on her palm. Ayame watched her go, frowning under the brim of the hat she was carrying. _Is she okay?_

Ayame could never be sure when it came to her mother. Maybe the fame really had gone to her mother's head, like people said. Or maybe she was just a nice person who did things. Ayame knew more nice people than people who did things.

Ayame shook her head and adjusted the volume dial in her pocket. Time to go take a look around.

Now that she had no choice but to look around at it, the ship was actually enormous on the inside. She hadn't looked too much at first. She was too tired from being on another mode of transportation early in the morning and being heckled by stupid paparazzi photographers. But now she could see creamy ceilings and walls, Viridian imported oak making up the rails and shined with Occa Berry glaze, to make them less flammable.

Someone glanced at her and then quickly away as they passed. Ayame's shoulders hunched and she sped up her stride, suddenly finding herself completely uninterested in examining the rest of the ship for at least the rest of this floor.

* * *

Meanwhile, Nancy watched Ayame disappear up one of the flights of stairs through the crack in the door of another room, her free hand clenched on the doorway. Then she let out a sigh and closed it, her neon-bright pink hair swinging elegantly about her hat. Everything about her was carefully constructed, built to be the societally appropriate star of the stage and cinema. "All right, she's left." Even her voice was harmless and breathless sounding. She wasn't sure why that would even be necessary. She used Fairy types.

"Wonderful." The other occupant of the small room raised a single dark eyebrow, her gothitelle's hand in hers. "Sit down. You're late."

Nancy pirouetted on her sharp heels, scowling ever so slightly. She strode across the room, white dress flying around her legs in quick shifts. "I'm only worried about her." Mawile's pokeball shuddered in her hand and she placed him in her bag beside another, beside the other.

"You don't have emotions with which to worry _with,_ " the woman countered with a singular snort, brushing her black hair out of her face. "Don't attempt the impossible. We have a job to do, don't we?"

Nancy wilted like a tulip, folding into herself and expression dulling into line, into the obedient doll that she knew she was supposed to be. "Yes, but… are you sure this is the right thing? I… I'm starting to wonder."

"You don't need to wonder." The other let out a fond sigh. "You just need to make Ayame happy. Get to West Gearen, start your new life. Get rid of that thing in your bag."

"She wants to train, Crescent." Nancy knew it more than anything, knew it by the stiff way Ayame fled from touch. She wanted to be free, wanted to be alone with herself and able to prove that she was more than the machinations of the Ecruteak theater. She wanted to be strong and her own.

"And that matters?" Crescent regarded her thoughtfully through her bangs, lounging in her chair with her legs raised on the cushion. "It never seemed to matter to you before."

Nancy looked at the ceiling and did not respond.

* * *

"So, in Aevium, once you beat the Leaders, you have an Elite Eight to face." Augustus Briney stroked the wiry ends of his white beard as he spoke, his hot cofee completely untouched.

Ayame sipped her tea to hide the gradually creeping fear of facing _twenty-seven_ elite trainers at the very least and the growing twitch in one eye because the Captain did not seem to have an off switch. "Why not four?" Seriously, wasn't the high-level trainer battling meant for places like the Battle Frontier

Augustus smiled at her. "Because four is a cursed number, is it not?"

Ayame shivered and nodded, taking a long sip of tea. The 'four is death' superstition probably wasn't the actual reason, but she could go along with it. Elite Four groups in the past few years had not been having a good time. Scandals and murders and all sorts of things. The entire upheaval in Unova right now was a great example of that, considering Plasma was still trying to go at it. "True." That wasn't even going into the rumor that Champion Lance was plotting the downfall of mankind. And with all the Elite Four accusations of not attacking cult groups, maybe they neeeded eight to get anything done.

The man winked, tugging on his sailor's cap. "Such a superstitious young woman you are."

Ayame made a face. "I lived in Ecruteak, sir." Ecruteak and Mahogany were almost as suspicious as Blackthorn, and they only weren't because they didn't worship a single type.

Augustus almost frowned, but he caught himself just in time. "That is very true. They are a suspicious folk there." He looked out the only round window of his office. "Ah. We are getting close. I should go check in on the lunch proceedings." He walked her out and Ayame yawned. "Going through the throes of puberty are we?" he chuckled. "My son was always tired when he was getting to your age."

Ayame made a face and laughed it off. "No, sir. I just get tired fairly often. I'll go rest until the banquet if that's all right." It was either that or him getting an actual answer on the slim chance he got remotely close to what it was.

"Of course. Just do not miss it. It's always a wonderful time."

 _Like mom would let me._ Ayame bowed quickly and left ahead of him, heading down the stairs and yawning again. _I didn't finish my tea._ But she wouldn't be punished for it here. So it was rude but pardonable.

Her mother smiled at her over paperwork as Ayame hung up her hat and snuggled under the safe warmth of the comforter. If her mother's hand ran over her hair at that point, she for once didn't react to it.

Instead, she dreamed of a little girl screaming for help as she died and died and died and for once it wasn't her screaming, which was very odd.

She heard the chanting of a language older than people's guts and ancient tablets, calling a name of a ghost long-dead. Or a creature who only existed in fairy tales.

Yet there were records. Pictures, audio files shattered at the seams of the mp4. It, with its thousand arms, existed to them.

With red and green eyes, Arceus stared down at her.

"I hope you realize how much work you are," he said. He sounded so disgruntled and with a prod of a hoof, he shooed her away. "Go on. I'll deal with you later."

Ayame woke up with a violent shudder. Her mother held her tight and in an instant, Ayame lashed out with hands and nearly her knees because _she couldn't breathe_ and seconds passed before she smelled the odd Liechi berry perfume. Ayame opened her eyes and curled away, up into herself where it was safe. Her mother smiled and wiped off the blood from her cheek.

"Just a scratch," she told her daughter, giggling a little. Not the public giggle but the worried one because her mother just couldn't be honest anywhere, anytime. "Don't worry, it will look good on my face. _You're_ the one who must look beautiful, everyone knows me."

Ayame nodded along with her fib, shame curling in her gut. She didn't feel very hungry now. Still, she made herself actually sit up, smoothing the wrinkles from her beautiful white dress-

 _That might look better with some red on it, red like your damn eyes, you spoiled freak-_

And retrieving her hat.

No, she could, she could not be a lady like her mother yet. Her grasp of the language was too weak and she didn't have the manners. But she could look it, and put up the facade a little. She smiled enough and kept her insults to herself. That would have to be enough.

"We need to go take our seats," Mum said gently, rubbing concealer over the razor-thin scratch. Ayame nodded again, picking up her bag from the shelf along with the clefairy doll next to it, ratty with age. She didn't know why, but she needed to do it, absolutely had to. She pulled it over one shoulder and put on her best smile.

"Ready."

Her mother grinned a conspirator's grin. "Let's give them a show."

Ayame tried to smile back, but the dream churned in the contents of her stomach.

* * *

Inside the elegant dining hall, Ayame listened to the prattle of the chef and their captain with only vague interest. The room was strangely dark, lit by small light bulbs hanging from the ceiling and a lot of candles on the tables. Coupled with the thick fabric tablecloths, it was really asking for a fire hazard. They must have been buying time for the food to finish. Then, with the chef's dramatic flourish, silver carts flew out from the doors to the side of the stage, placing covered plates at every table. Ayame wanted to groan. Why was this so dramatic?

Her mother laughed. "Enjoy the silly, Aya," she told her. "It's always a hoot."

"Or something," Ayame made to cut into her buneary when the doors in the back swung open themselves. A woman shrieked.

"There's a bomb downstairs!" Everyone stared dumbly at the woman at the door before she grinned. "And I put it there."

Her mother shouted something, something like her name and a command. She saw someone behind her mother, unmoving but for a hand at their fork. But then she didn't hear or see anything else because purple light washed over her and she was gone.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ Well, hello there. I'm here. It took me a while, but as a celebration of the upcoming release of version nine of Pokemon Rejuvenation, here is part one of my run. I hope you guys enjoy it! Please leave a review down below if you can. I love them very much. Also as a small heads-up, the rating might increase at some point.

Challenges: Diversity Writing Anime/Manga M8. modernized!AU, Epic Masterclass (Pokemon Gen) Mix Tapes.


	2. Chapter 2 - For Your Sake

_Warning for improper use of pokemon moves, trauma, evil aliens, and near-drowning, and cursing. Also death._

 _REVISED: 02-24-17_

* * *

 ** _Chapter Two – For Your Sake_**

For a few moments, she dreamed.

In her dreams, there was a happy little girl tugging on her father's leg. BLonde hair, emerald eyes, and a happy smile full of dreams. In her dreams, there was a mother bleeding from her head, the rest of her like a flattened durant. Ayame looked at a checkerboard floor. She half expected to see pieces lining the walls, waiting to rush her all at the same time. Instead, there are just doors and a grand piano on the left side. It played keys without any fingers on it and Ayame, as if tugged by destiny itself, went towards it.

Instead of reaching it, however, she smacked into a mirror. Hard. Or, well, hard enough that it stung her fingers. Ayame stumbled back dizzily and looked at herself in the mirror.

Blonde hair framed green eyes, four-leaf clover eyes that were supposed to be innocent. There was a hard gem in the center, a strange chill in the pupils that meant lack of sleep and more, so much more. She was smaller, cheeks chubbier and more full. Everything was wrong. She was too pale and stereotypically angelic for Ayame's taste.

Which meant that this was not her at all.

A voice called a name.

"Marionette."

 _No,_ Ayame insisted in the back of her gut. _Not me. I'm-_

 _Maria._

 _Ayame. Ae-_

"Your father is waiting for you in the east wing."

 _Which one?_ Ayame whispered into the frills of her collar. Which one? Cause this person sounded like neither. Didn't sound right. Where was Mama? Where was Mum? Not here like always?

There was a loud smashing sound like someone had dropped a vase next to her ear. She cringed in pain and whirled around. The maid stared at her with utter disinterest, one of many, she subconsciously realized.

"Your father wants you in the east wing. I suggest you get moving."

Ayame heard her mouth open, ask a question in a voice that was high and soft and sweet and _perfect._ Not hers at all. Wanting to be called her name.

All she gained in return was a _laugh._

So she walked. Down ruined halls and past whispering maids. They were almost impossible to tell apart without their voices.

Ayame could _hear_ , she suddenly realized. If she was capable of crying, she would have. It had been _three years._ In knowing that, in realizing that, the hazy sort of quality that dreams gave you, suddenly sharpened.

 _This girl is going to die,_ said her mind, her thoughts retreating afterward, forcing her eyes open, forcing her to watch.

And she heard something terrible, she heard them calling to god what seemed like miles away.

She heard the little girl start to scream and shut her eyes-

* * *

Ayame opened her eyes to see the captain's room, head splitting and hearing aids sparking with static. It took her a moment to recognize it. There were patchy holes and things wriggling out of them, grey and drenched with what smelled like sea water. The more they moved around her, the more her head throbbed, centering around her ears.

"Warning," a tinny voice spoke by her ear. You would figure a hearing aid would do it telepathically- wait it was. "Psychic pokemon influence detected. You may experience disorientation and processing difficulties. Please make sure to dry hearing aids before continuing prolonged usage."

"What psychic po-" Then a gray tentacle exploded through the wood right by her left arm. Ayame rolled away from it with a shout of terror, catching herself on all fours.

"Holy crap," she whispered. The tentacle clawed and lunged but for some reason, didn't manage to get any closer to her hands, even as another lunged up from her right. Ayame forced herself not to jump this time, watching each one until they retreated into the depths of the ship once more. There were quiet sounds from the various holes, but there was way too much sparking from her hearing aids so she couldn't make out a single word. Ayame shivered and carefully picked herself up, leaving the tentacles wriggling in place. She crept slowly on her socks, shoes in one hand to make less noise. Other tentacles reached up and she skittered past them on the tips of her toes.

 _What happened?_ She looked around, jumping at each sharp vibration of crashing tentacles by her feet. _What happened? What happened? Why did this happen?_

On the floor below, the pianist was sitting on a table, watching an unconscious passenger be dragged into the nearest hole. Someone else screamed a half a meter away and Ayame turned to watch their fingers scramble and then disappear, plunging below. She almost swallowed her tongue.

The pianist looked about the room, her jigglypuff floating about her head. She managed a watery smile. "Holy hell. How'd you get there, kid?"

Ayame bit her lip, the static on her hearing aids dying slowly, just enough that reading lips allowed her to guess the rest. "I… not sure." Someone must have teleported her, but she hadn't any idea except for that lady behind her. And why would she do that?

The woman made herself laugh. "Good enough, I guess. You need to get off the ship."

"What about my mom?" She couldn't just leave her. The woman was distant at best but that was still her mother.

For a moment, the pianist said things that she couldn't grasp. Ayame jammed her hand into her pocket to adjust the dial with her thumb. A piercing whine hit her in the head and she grimaced. Now she wished-

" _Metal Sound? In an enclosed area! What was he thinking?"_

" _He wasn't, of course. Poor things. Look at all these people..."_

For things that wouldn't happen. "I need to find her," she finally said, not trying to translate things that she didn't even remember hearing.

The woman sighed. "All right. Catch!" She threw a pokeball at her and Ayame fumbled her one-handed catch. "Puff will lead you to safety. Two of us on the floor is too dangerous. I'm surprised these things ain't got me yet." Her jigglypuff squeaked and got a scoff. "No, I'll go down after. When it's safer. I've got a boat now." The balloon pokemon made another squeak before floating to Ayame, looking distinctly put out too. Ayame put her shoes and the ball in her bag, barely remembering it was there.

"Thank you..." she managed, earning a shake of her head.

"Go, quick. Your mom's gotta have Pokemon that can get us some help."

That was probably true. She would surely have a part-Water type like primarina. She wasn't sure if it would be quick enough.

Ayame trailed after the bouncing balloon, which made chuffing noises as they descended further, towards the banquet hall. Or what Then, to be safe, Ayame returned it. Might confuse people. She gave what remained of the door a hefty shove, listening to the flailing of the tentacles as they smashed into the remaining wooden cabins. People groaned as the tentacles tugged, oblivious to their pain.

Inside, she found the boat captain weeping, blood on his face and horror in his eyes. He looked at her. "What are you… how?"

Ayame shook her head mutely, static filling her ears. "Mum?" It was all she could say.

He managed to point, fingers trembling. "Down below. She went to contain the fire from the bomb. But you can't go down there, it's too dangerous."

Ayame shrugged and turned around, running down to the stairs she had seen in her exploration. Everything was dangerous here. She didn't need to care anymore. What she did care about was the lack of movement from the tentacles towards her. That was… worrying. Not a relief. It meant she was singled out, special, _significant._ Or it meant that she was not loud enough after all.

In an adventure, that was never good. It meant a quest, exploration. She didn't want that, not like this. She just wanted to get some badges, make some friends. Be normal. She was already too different as it was.

Her feet splashed into the water of a broken pipe, drenching her socks and freezing her legs. Ayame made herself go on. This would be okay. It would be fine. She just had to reach her mother and that teleporter. And then get out. However, that would happen.

She managed to make it part of the way into the storage room before her mother's Sylveon bowled her over, licking her on the cheeks and drenching them in seawater. Ayame almost laughed but it caught stuck in her throat.

Then her mother caught her hat and rested it on her hair. "Thank goodness," she murmured, brushing her cheek. "Thank goodness you're all right."

Ayame shivered and looked up towards the next hole. Her mother followed her eyes and Sylveon snarled. Two creatures flanked a young woman with purple hair, a sneer on their face. "She would have been all right if she'd remained hidden for perhaps a little while longer. But we cannot tolerate witnesses… and _she_ is likely watching."

Ayame felt mum's fingers tighten on her shoulder. "Sylveon, attack."

The woman yawned. "Flash Cannon, Deoxy."

In the flash of resulting light, Ayame felt a very familiar pain ringing in her ears. During that ringing, her mother's hand moved to her own free one. "I'm sorry..." Larger hands shoved her back and Ayame nearly toppled forward. The message was clear.

 _Run. Don't look back._

Ayame ran, feeling a stinging in her eyes, and did not look back.

She did not see her mother turn, nor hear the encouragement meant for her.

" _If it's you, you can move on. You can be free. Hurry!"_

Ayame was already out of the room, dodging flailing appendages until one of those monsters, a… deoxys, like the one sighted from Hoenn, was looking right at her. It lunged-

Only for a piano to crash onto its head and limbs, burying it in beautiful wood and porcelain.

Above her, the pianist cawed in triumph, only to scream. "Fuck you, you no good hentai magazine models! Can't take a good song can ya? Move, girl, move! Drag these screwballs out into the light and make 'em burn!"

Ayame felt Puff's ball wriggle on her and moved forward, up the stairs and up a deck, running to a lack of railing. All she had to do was get underwater long enough for them to not look and have Puff be a life buoy until she could get hope or release whatever pokemon was in the ball her mother had given he-

She shoved that into her bag too and hurried on.

An older man in a suit (when had these people found time to get here?) was standing there, with three of those monsters coming closer to her. The woman was already there. Panic gripped her stomach. Panic and fear and anger.

"Come now, little urchin," The purple woman said. "Come and be good. Your mother's rebellion will get you nowhere."

Ayame trembled with fear and cold and anger. "You… What use am I to you, huh?"

The elderly man stepped closer to the cracks in the bow, seemingly unafraid. "You're her daughter, are you not? Is it not apparent?"

"If I was good leverage, you'd have made effort to catch me first." Ayame moved her hand to her bag. A tentacle lunged, smacking it hard enough to bruise, and Ayame reacted, her other hand plunging in and snatching the ratty old doll from inside and tossing it high. The deoxys screeched, tentacles swimming as she dove under them. The purple-haired woman moved towards her and she rammed her head up into her chin. Reaching the edge, panting hard, Ayame threw herself over, hitting the water and a loud burst of streaming static and pain.

For a few moments, she was completely under, blind, deaf and unmoving. Then Puff's Pokeball opened and the giant balloon expanded underneath her. Ayame reflexively clawed for her bag and her hearing device. It needed to work. If she couldn't hear help arriving, she wouldn't answer and they'd be left here, floating to death or Puff would run out of energy and then-

If that happened, she _had_ to return the jigglypuff. The Pokemon could survive inside the waterproof ball. She hoped. As for her? Well, she had a backup, a very dangerous, very painful backup.

Something red streaked towards her, possibly to the sound of her hacking up water. Sharp talons picked her up and threw her high, leaving Ayame flat on her back, things drooping with water. Ayame managed to fumble the pokeball out once more, leaving her alone with this apparent savior bird.

Passing out sounded really good right now.

However, the very second she tried, she felt the rain. Cold and unrelenting, it made her open her eyes to see what remained of the ship being dragged into the ocean below. A little pink dot bobbed and dropped part of the way.

Her father had placed that doll in her hands once.

Then the bird pulled her away, streaking with the rain and smoking with self-created flame.

Dead. Dead. Dead everywhere. All in that one place. All but her… and mum. Maybe.

She had to hope.

* * *

She dreamed of a young girl screaming again. Screaming awful things, calling for help.

She wished she'd been with the child so she could tell her: no one comes when you call. Not without suffering in return. People tended to hurt when they answered calls for help.

Ayame then woke to a gentle rocking beneath her back and the soft sound of rain hitting windows. She didn't shoot up this time. Everything in her ached, so she couldn't even try. She coughed.

Movement, blurry through her slit eyes, came from ways off There was garbled sound. She made her eyes open to see-

A floral patterned dress, sculpted, round features. Softer red hair, not Hoenn-bred because the skin was a little too dark for a simple sun-bent tan and too dark unless from Pacifidlog or Slateport. Everything about this person was power contained in a sloped jar. It was like a cork in a wine bottle. Just wait for it to break. Considering she was the one who currently had her in her clutches, wherever that may be at the moment, Ayame did not want to risk it. Not now. Her head throbbed. The ship had sunken, with people trapped in tentacle grips and her mother possibly with them. But it was unlikely. They had wanted to capture her. Would have been easier to capture a corpse, surely but she knew a corpse was less useful. The monks had told her so.

The woman's face was suddenly much too close and only the lead sensation in her body prevented Ayame from lashing out with her knee. Lucky for her, the woman leaned back after seeing her open eyes.

"You're a light sleeper." There was a _bawwing_ sound, faintly audible from this distance, but she could make out the woman's syllables due to their close proximity. "Probably a good thing. How are you feeling?"

She had a voice like the oldest kimono girl to run the theater, soothing and yet knife worthy. Arceus help-

 _Throb._

Bad throb.

Okay, no more Arceus swearing apparently.

"Everyone died," Ayame finally croaked out with some lack of self-preservation. "So, bad."

The woman laughed, curse her. "Good," she said. "I'd be really worried if you said you were fine." She placed her hand on Ayame's forehead and Ayame's hands twitched to grab the wrist. "Not much of a fever, thanks to Talonflame drying you off and getting rid of the wet clothes."

Ayame, hearing that sentence, flushed from head to toe. "Erm." She didn't want to say, _of course, I don't have a fever, I can never have a fever again unless I'm frozen and in the deepest trench_ , but that would sound ungrateful and this woman's pokemon had just prevented her from eventually drowning to death or being captured again. Correcting her would only be suspicious in the long run.

The woman laughed. "Not to worry, I had a spare bathrobe. You're a small one." A pause. "And a scarred one."

Ayame squirmed. "That's not important."

"I'd say having a celebrity's daughter all scarred up on my boat's important." Sharp tone, softened at the flinch. "Your pink hair's a good identifier kiddo. I'm sorry to say, your mother has a rep around here. Nancy the Fairy Singer, or something, right?"

Ayame made a face. "Yeah. That's it, ma'am." Easier to agree with it, despite the slight inaccuracy. Besides, Nancy the Fairy Reaper didn't get as many fans. And it kept her from asking about the scars.

She got a mud-brown laugh, a real one. "Ma'am? Oh my, your parents must have taught you good manners. My name is Tesla, darling."

"Thank you for saving me, Ms. Tesla, and for speaking close to my ears." She would ignore the rest. That was safer, saner.

Tesla let out another laugh. "Well, I couldn't leave you nodding along and hung out to dry. At any rate, at the very least, your mother is likely alive, albeit in the clutches of a murderous organization." At the sight of Ayame's eyes widening, she sighed. "As a League representative, I am required by law to inform you of that and look into it, considering I also saw the debacle." She rubbed her temples. "Up until now, Team Xen has never gone this far to make progress… I wonder just what's changed." She stepped away from Ayame for a moment, muttering. Then she returned with a similar white dress to what she had worn before and her hearing aids. Ayame sat up and gingerly took them.

"Your hat's somewhere out to sea and your dress was ruined on the way down. Lucky for you, you're just about the size of my daughter before her last growth spurt."

Ayame deciphered one word in ten of this, but she bowed her head and took the items. For a moment or two, her ears filled with a vaguely familiar shrieking sound before settling into the low hum of actual noise. Then, without hesitation, she threw herself under the duvet to change, ignoring Tesla's incredulous eyes on her. Then she got an exasperated giggle.

"You could have just used the restroom for that."

Ayame flushed. Then, Tesla handed her her bag and looked outside to the sound of pattering rain. "Is that going to go down?"

Tesla shrugged. "Not for a while, I would gather. Due to the pollution, it tends to rain often in this area. Your old dress wouldn't have survived long in it. So you may have to purchase an umbrella in Gearen. It's not really worth it though."

Ayame nodded and bit her lip, worrying over it.

Tesla watched this. "Well, what are you going to do now?"

Ayame ran her fingers over the floral pattern on the flap of her bag and then rummaged inside. Puff's ball was apparent, a heart over its button. But the second, engraved with kanji, was only familiar with what it said on it. This was the gift from her mother.

"What I came here for," she finally said, looking up with the scarlet-red eyes that ruined the illusion of her being her mother's clone. "I'm going to challenge the Aevium League. But when I get stronger, I'll find my mother. I'll save her like she saved me today." Even though there had been no saving really, just opportunity. This woman did not need to know that, however.

Tesla's expression turned into a twitching frown before smoothing over. "I see. Well. Then you'll just have to get registered then, won't you?"

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** Thank you for your support so far everyone! Sorry for the delay, I was holding back this chapter to see how long we would be waiting on Version 9, so I have a steady backlog. But now, we're back! Still going to be a bit slow, but, hey, it'll all be worth it. I have to decide what choices I want to make. But anyway, here we are. Below I'll be keeping track of the Pokemon we use here. Please leave a review, it helps me out with these busy weeks. And support Rejuvenation.

Ayame's Current Pokemon:

 _Owned:_

?

 _Borrowing:_

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	3. Chapter 3 - Aren't I Alone Already?

_Warnings: Swearing_

 _EDITED: 02-23-18_

* * *

 _Chapter Three – Aren't I Alone Already?_

Ayame, hidden under the nearest awning, watched Tesla go off towards the water on her talonflame. The woman had patted her head and for a moment it had felt safe to stand there with an adult. Then she had stopped and said, "Make sure you let Amanda know you're technically independent now" and Ayame's stomach had dropped, leaving nothing but a hollow rock and nausea etching itself into her face. Because she had forgotten all about that.

Trainers with no local family had no secondary source of income, no families to return to or guardians to fund on hard times. It was one of the cons that came from traveling outside of your home region. That meant the government had a hold of you until you were at least fifteen unless a relative or official popped in and adopted you from nowhere, or you were sent home.. If she was at home in Johto, pow, boom, straight back to Morty she'd go, for the three days it would turn for her to be resent somewhere else to complete her journey under the whim of the Kimono Girls. He had done it before when Nancy had left her at the gym and would do it again if he needed to.

Which was fine, and would have happened anyway with no idea who her birth father was and a mother technically absent before today. But she was in foreign territory, and judging by the brown water and crumbling warehouses, being a state ward was going to suck. And with the S.S. Oceana clearly lost at sea, the likelihood of a ship getting here anytime soon was a crapshoot, at best. At least the practice of battling for pocket change had never died out.

Unfortunately, the fact that she was here, rather than whatever region was on her birth certificate, left her at a distinct disadvantage. Her mother had most of her international papers, so she'd have to plea to Morty to get new copies if she even wanted to leave legally. And those would be tied up in bureaucracy. And it meant that she had no one who would sponsor her without serious convincing. And if this was a government that had brown water in its own ports, well, she didn't have much hope that they could do nearly as much as they needed to.

Not that she blamed Tesla for reminding her of that, it wasn't her fault. She had no idea. She had wanted to know, for some reason, but Ayame could chalk that one off to pity. Tesla had probably assumed like everyone else would, that she had grown up in the lifestyle of the rich and famous. She had not. Johto arguably, took care of its own, but that was only because Professor Oak was a notorious master of teamwork and philosophy and logic nonsense so no one stood against a bulldozer like that. It was also because Tohjo was incredibly superstitious and religious and all those other traditionalist things. She wasn't going to argue against that in this case.

She had a good reason to believe most of it as she shivered in the rain, her skin flaring up with heat for the second time today.

When trainer and pokemon were just a speck, Ayame turned and watched the rain underneath the awning. Grimacing at her pink hair, she resolved to get hair-ties and towels at the nearest pharmacy. Wet hair constantly on her back and on her face was just… urgh. Impractical. Very impractical. And she wasn't allowed to cut her hair ever again. Letting out a small cough, she started walking. As she passed by the docks, there was a small crowd, including what looked like a news reporter truck with a rolling camera.

Well… shit.

She kept walking. If they saw her, they'd either confuse her for her mother or interrogate her about her mother. She'd rather deal with neither. So she went the opposite direction, ending up at a rather large building. It had to be important. Every important building apparently had glass doors of some kind so far, unless they were steel. She poked her head inside to see people sleeping in chairs, women at counters, honestly it was a more modern looking customs office except emptier. The one in Johto was a mess daily because of the high people content. You didn't sleep the night you had to go through customs in Tohjo.

Ayame fingered her trainer card, then her volume button. The aids didn't feel particularly wet anymore, even. She was never questioning her mother's choice in anything but perfume again. They had survived an ocean fall and lost _nothing_.

She stepped toward the counter furthest from the entrance. Realistically, that'd be her way into Aevium right?

"Evening to you!" the woman chirped. Ayame blinked and almost covered her ears. What time was it and how could anyone be that cheerful? "Do you have a passport?"

Ayame nodded then paused. Her mother had her passport… crap. "I have a trainer card?"

The other woman's eyes gleamed. It made her almost consider smacking into the reporters. "That'll do! C'mere!"

Ayame opted to follow rather than be dragged to another counter, where someone else took the card and did… something. Ayame had no idea how card verification worked, but whatever. They handed her back her card and welcomed her to hell, er Aevium.

She almost wanted to find the nearest boat back to Johto at this point. At least there, if you were absolutely insane, she could figure out the reason why.

* * *

Gearen City was, simply put, _huge,_ and this was just the _eastern side_ if you went by the venomous muttering outside a building with a red door. She had visited Goldenrod twice in her life and this easily outranked the place. Emolga swooped overhead, chased by cawing murkrow and shocking them in the rain. She coul barely see the distant tops of buildings and all of them were the same, black and grey except for the multicolored multitudes of doors. It was like a child's first painting of the big city.

Ayame shot a glance at the nearest street signs, ignoring the low voices murmuring on the nearly empty streets. Well, in all those trainer biographies that only she was nerdy enough to actually read, the best place to go to get a starter and training kit was the nearest laboratory, and there was a map that said go straight. Hah. That was funny.

But still, forward it was.

Thankfully the lab was actually super damn obvious once she looked. It was the only silver building around, and its green-tinted windows were drenched in rain. Seriously, was it a trend to have outlandish, garish buildings be as relevant as possible? "Must need something to do with all that money," Ayame muttered, pressing the door open.

A familiar black and red cap stuck out in the middle of clean tile everywhere, perusing a book with too much intensity. "Amanda?" Her voice was a little hoarse. Exhaustion probably.

The young woman turned and smiled in relief. "Aya!" she rushed over, looking her up and down. "You're late… and you've lost your hat. And your mother. I thought she was going to be here."

Ayame's lips twitched, forcing the smile of a true hero. "It's… a long story."

Amanda's dark eyes narrowed slightly, and Ayame felt uncomfortable. That probably had more to do with the fact that she was drenched again. "Worthy of League attention?"

"Uhm..." Ayame scratched her head. "Probably."

Amanda grimaced. Ayame wasn't quite sure why she was asking, this was probably high above her pay grade as a recruiter. "All right, okay… let's get you a voice recorder. We'll make this fast so you can get a room and get some sleep."

And never have to talk about this again, dear Arce- Throb. Ow.

Ayame rubbed behind her left ear. That was going to get annoying really fast.

 _Then stop doing it and have some respect._ The voice hissed with irritation.

The last time someone disrespected a god it was by chaining it to machines, what was invoking it going to do to her at this damn point?

 _More than you know._

Well, she was already hearing voices, and this wasn't even a voice she knew.

Amanda pulled her from the voices in her head and led her to a room. The interrogation was quick, thankfully, as she had none of those dramatic voice hitches that she needed to sound emotionally compromised. That was probably a sign of a problem. Oh well. She was probably still in shock if she actually wanted to think about it.

After a good few minutes of sitting in an empty room, Amanda led her up the stairs again to another room, with an actual bed.

"Normally," the woman began, lips quirking. "I'd just send you on, get your pokemon and stuff, but Professor Jenner's currently off on work and you're supposed to get the training kits from wherever he hides them. So, for now-" She dropped a stack of papers on the bedside table. "Read those, take a breather. You're an independent now, you should at least know what you're up against."

Ayame skimmed the top form, trying to find it within her to complain. Paperwork sucked. But it was admittedly better than going out in the now thunderstorm. "Sponsors? I can actually get financial help here?"

"It's rare but yeah." Amanda shook her head. "Considering the number of orphans that come here thinking it's their big break and things… Anyway… Imma hit the hay. See you in the morning."

Ayame wanted to comment on the sheer lack of cares in that last sentence but she was pretty sure the scout had just teleported from her room. Wow. Okay then. She supposed that was fair. All the pain was coming back to her all at once and that was just not cool so she probably should take this as a time to relax a bit.

Settling onto the bed, Ayame picked up the paperwork and started to read. Thank god Amanda had left a pen and these rooms had paper pads. She wasn't going to just numbly absorb everything and not understand it. She had _questions_. And these questions could determine whether she lived or died... or lived painfully.

Or at least, she had questions until her eyes hurt, which at that point Ayame flung the papers back on the table and flopped back on the pillows. No wonder trainers dropped out so much. Keeping track of stipends, health concerns, any of that without one of those high tech phone things was asking for it. Or was it a pokedex? Maybe Aevium did it with a pokedex. That sounded nice.

Ayame groaned and rubbed her eyes once more. Then, she examined her bag. Neither of those pokeballs had wriggled once in the many hours. Were they dead? She doubted it but still. She pulled out both balls and expanded them. Puff was probably fine, it was a jigglypuff and had no reason to hate her aside from this afternoon's disaster. Now, whatever was in that ball from her mom…

Hopefully, Puff could just ram it out cold if it was antagonistic.

That thought in her head, Ayame expanded both balls and tossed them to the floor.

Puff popped out, floating around eagerly until it saw Ayame and drooped with disappointment. "I'm sorry," Ayame told the balloon. "She told me to run."

The jigglypuff bobbed, then its big blue eyes turned to the other occupant of the room. Who, as a matter of fact, was growling at her. Ayame crawled to the edge of the bed, not even getting an ear twitch of acknowledgment. Nope. It was staring right at Puff and looked ready to maul.

Considering it was an eevee, that was a hilarious idea. It was adorable until you got to the glazed look in its eyes, the slightly matted fur, and the way the pointy ears were back and ready to pounce.

"Hey!" Ayame half-shouted. "Quit that!"

To her surprise, said eevee stopped. It turned away from Puff and stood straight at attention in her direction. Ayame blinked, then patted the bed. "Up."

Up it went, following the patting until it was right in front of Ayame's legs. She reached down and pet the fox-thing, expecting small teeth to sink into her fingers. However, nothing happened. Only more blank stares.

"What's with you?" she asked it, only getting silence in return. Its eyes bored into her face, but it did not stop her from petting. The normally soft eyes of an eevee, looking this close, were a hollow, dull purple.

Then Puff made a sound and its head snapped towards her. Eevee snarled and something pulled out from beneath Ayame's fingers, flowing out like water and washing about.

"No." Ayame had no idea what that was but she did not like it. "Bad Eevee. You aren't attacking her."

Eevee immediately went silent and nearly completely still. That said, its tail twitched.

Ayame thought this over. "You like me talking to you huh?"

Another twitch.

Ayame nodded at this. "Kay then."

Puff stared at them and then floated over, settling next to the pillow. This time, Eevee did not react. This earned an ear scratch. Ears shifted back ever so slightly. Maybe a muscle reflex?

This seemed weird. Not weird enough to merit her waking Amanda or someone else quite yet, but weird.

Puff floated over her head and dropped a piece of mail and a memory card on her pillow. The letter smelled like Liechi. Her mother's favorite berry.

Ayame opened the envelope. She managed to read about four lines before jumping out of bed and running down the hall.

"Nurse," she called, clutching the barely responsive creature. "Nurse! Nurse!" She barely made it to the counter before blurting out- "I think something's wrong with this pokemon!"

Like that, according to those papers, she had a _Shadow type pokemon._

* * *

Less than fifteen hours later, it was confirmed that celebrity Nancy, trainer extraordinaire and master of fairies, had indeed had a Shadow Eevee in her possession for whatever reason. Up until however, she got it, which Amanda was refusing to tell her because whatever was in that memory card and in the parts of the letter she hadn't read, it had been in Aevium. Not that she got to use it, Ayame apparently had to wait until she got a real starter instead of just running off into the wind. Because Puff legally wasn't hers.

"But why can't I start with eevee?" Not that she particularly wanted to start with a murderbeast that was supposed to have been made specifically made in Orre but apparently wasn't? She had no idea. But still. Mom had given her that! She wasn't just going to let the thing go!

"The professor would probably confiscate her." Amanda led her up the escalator, politely ignoring Ayame's frequent yawns. "Team Xen tends to have them and make them. They probably stole Cipher technology to do it, but there are plenty of methods of breaking a pokemon's heart. So he'd confiscate it for the sake of our healing reputation. Also, there's not a legal gym anywhere that'll let you bring a shadow to your gym battle. It's cheating and gives a bad rep besides. So, we'll just write the little fella off as your therapy pokemon. You feel me?"

Ayame tried to grin. "I probably need one anyway, the head case I am."

Amanda reached down and poked her in the nose. "Cute. Now, let's get to Jenner and get the hell outta here. I got more people to scout."

Ayame waited for the older woman to look away before flushing in guilt. She was being an inconvenience here, wasn't she?

Lucky for her, the woman didn't notice. She was distracted by someone running down the escalator at full speed. Ayame felt the Eevee lean against her dress as she did so. It was probably just for body heat. Puff's pokeball shook in her bag.

"Too bad that Fairy there's a level forty-six," Amanda muttered. "Coulda made a real splash like that, Aya."

"I'm not using a dead lady's partner without permission," Ayame replied without hesitation.

Amanda hummed. Ayame didn't really care whether she did or not. Wasn't like it would work anyway. The captain had told her so.

They entered a spacious room decorated in red and black. Like the woman's uniform on the ship. Ayame let her eyes wander until they locked on a giant screen with a woman's face. A man, who was probably the professor, was speaking to whoever it was. Ayame turned up her earbuds and winced at the static.

Amanda coughed, tapping her foot and the screen went off as the man jumped to turn around. He was a rather tall man, with a pleasant, slightly round face and dark blue eyes. His brown hair fell in a lazy mop. That was fair. It was nine in the morning here.

Ayame ran her hands through her scraggly locks of pink. Could she get her pokemon and _go_? She had planned for a good three days of adjustment to the time zone change and new life things, picking out furniture for their apartment and doing grocery shopping with her starter. Granted, it was her decision to eschew that, but the sleep was definitely necessary.

Amanda leveled the professor with a not-amused look and the man smiled. That small smile made the hair on the back of Ayame's own neck stand on end. She shook it down, put her own smile on. That was the right way to do things. This person would give her what she needed and that would be that. There was no reason to get his ire. None at all.

"Aya made it in last night," Amanda reported, slipping right past every formality possible. Wow. Ayame mentally noted the shorter name. Aya. The pink hair would be a coincidence or dyed to look like the famous celebrity. Not actually her daughter from the rumors, came in on another boat, accurate fangirl to the clothes. The answers, the disguise, flooded her brain in rapid succession and soon, Ayame relaxed her mouth into an easier grin, lips upturned and back to show off her teeth in the light. She crinkled her eyes like the grandfathers of her hometown demonstrated and looked, suitably young.

"Hi mister Jenner," she greeted, straightening her back. " Nice to meet you! Sorry, I'm late, the boat took a detour for some reason! I don't think they expected the rain to be quite like this! My hat went flying! I bet some murkrow's got it by now!"

The man laughed and Amanda's lips quirked. Ayame refused to break character now. A twelve-year-old girl, eager to prove herself, nervous until attention was placed upon her, a fan of a celebrity with an eevee in her arms (preparing to be _Nancy's Sylveon_ ), wanting to be _just like her idol_ , and quick to talk and give excuses that excised her of the blame. In short, a dime a dozen girl who needed a dose of reality. The only thing missing was her hat and the beautiful ribbons. As it was, she made sure to tilt her head so her bangs covered her eyes as much as possible.

Her mother was famous and the color of her eyes was nearly impossible to mimic with contacts or surgery. Sure, he could argue coincidence or rich parents of her own, but he was a scientist and she was here. He wouldn't argue coincidence.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Professor Jenner said with a chuckle. "They must have been a new boat then, it's rather common knowledge around here to worry about the storms. But! You're here now, so here's what you've been waiting for. Let's get you a starter, all right?"

Ayame smiled all the brighter and leaned on her eevee's furry head. "Yes, sir!"

She couldn't fake her surprise when the eevee licked her chin.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ I meant to post this last night after work I'm sorry! It's been a busy couple of weeks for me. And still will be. Boy will I be glad when I have a steady job. Theoretically. Anyway, I know about the change from Amanda to Amanda. For the moment, I will keep it Amanda. At least until I have time to go back and edit it all at once. So bear with me.

Also backlogged enough of the game that I can officially mess around with a good few bits. I'll see what happens with Blacksteeple. Anyway, won't ramble on anymore. Please let me know if the reasoning makes sense, especially considering you can't use shadow pokemon in gym fights anyway.

Ayame's Current Pokemon:

 _Owned:_

Eevee (Shadow Pokemon, Currently Unsafe): ?, lvl 5: Shadow Rush

 _Borrowing:_

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	4. Chapter 4 - Flames in the Rainwater

_Warnings: Past implied bullying, Ren, anxiety_

 _I edited the previous chapters to change a plot point that hasn't really come up yet. Still kinda important!_

 _REVISED:03-03-18 in preparation for next chapter. The rest should be good._

* * *

 _Chapter Four – Flames in the Rainwater_

The pod encircled her whole body and Ayame swallowed to contain what muffin she had managed to choke down an hour ago. Amanda had winked at her as she went through the door and that didn't imply anything nope. Not at all. The pod (it was an elevator, why did this elevator fit one person and feel like the one time she had used a water slide, this was a capsule pod) jolted and down they went. The eevee did not react, but that wasn't all too surprising. It only seemed to react to stimuli from her. It was likely all the fairy dust from being around her mother and her pack of fae. Fitting, she supposed. Maybe these shadows were weak to fairy lights.

As they descended, everything came back to her, crushing about her shoulders and back. A ship was dead. Because of her mother. Because, in a sick way, of her. She shook her head.

"Can't think like that," she said to herself. "Need to be strong."

 _Hollow words, still waters,_ her guardian whispered in her mind. _Niceties won't change the world. Be honest with yourself._

"I need to stop trembling," She corrected herself. "I need firmer feet. I need to study pokemon. I need to love my partners." Whatever that meant. "I need to throw a punch. Then I will be stronger."

She rubbed eevee on the head. No response this time. Well, it was strange enough to have a response at all.

The pod settled and opened. Ayame stepped out and for a moment, stared. Natural underground modules. How could this place have so much pollution and yet have such a realistic looking module for pokemon to live in? That heat from the right was almost as hot as actual volcanic lava wasn't it…? Nah, they wouldn't get that lucky. Or that reckless. She hoped.

She stepped out and hurried down the steps, still staring about. It wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was fascinating to imagine the construction of. Eevee didn't seem to agree.

Pokemon after pokemon rushed about at the sound of her steps, going to gather at her feet. Eevee twitched, claws unsheathing and threatening to burrow out into Ayame's bare arms. She made a shushing sound and knelt to greet the eager starters. Most of them were typically fire types and grass types. Not that all water types were aloof, but most of them preferred the warm water, letting her come to them. In the mountains beside Ecruteak, the only pokemon from the water who came near were the magikarp or the marill, and the magikarp were just trying to find something to help them evolve and commit mass murder.

So for now, she didn't mind petting all of the eager chikorita that came close and nuzzled her, recognizing the scent of earth and berries. (She had to wonder if her mother's perfume was permanently etched into her skin.) A chimchar climbed close to her ear, earning the nose twitch from her eevee. Most of the fire pokemon, however, seemed uninterested beyond that.

Not that this bothered Ayame. She had had no dreams of the perfect starter. It was an unofficial Ecruteak law that every girl and boy apprenticed with the Kimono Girls or the Bell Monks were going to be given a starter of some kind, usually an eevee (how ironic). Still. She let herself wander over to the water, still followed by the bulbasaur and now, surprisingly, the torchic cluster.

Immediately, the air felt cooler, the breeze from the air conditioner a relief over her face. A piplup stared impassively at her from its vigil. Then it dove, splashing the torchic away. Said chick squawked with indignation. Ayame felt a helpless, genuine giggle bubble up from her mouth. Well, it clearly wasn't either of those two. They had a rivalry to uphold!

She trailed over the wooden dock until coming face to face with a blue seal. It had much bigger eyes than the seel of Tohjo waters, and a smaller mouth and its skin could easily blend in with sunny water. It let out a brief honk from its big pink nose and then barked, letting out delighted squeals at the sight of someone's face on theirs.

"That's a popplio." Amanda chirped as she stepped down the elevator. "Cutie, huh? It took a lot of strings to get those pulled from Alola."

Ayame tilted her head. Alola was one of the more easygoing regions. The common joke was that they didn't _have_ regulations, not with the Aether foundation handling most of the pokemon efforts. "Really?"

"Yup." She held a litten in her arms and it looked grumpier than the nearby piplup. "They don't think Aevium is clean enough and other things. They're also a fair bit savage happy over there. You know, death runs and such. We're pretty cuckoo over here but at least it's not monetized like that. Also, have you _read_ their legends and mythology?"

Ayame decided to turn away at that thought (because just because you weren't making money off of it didn't mean it didn't happen) and held out her hand to the little seal. It barked and plopped a finpaw on her own.

"I think he likes you."

Ayame felt her heart in her throat and swallowed it. Liked her? Really? Truly? She gently pulled her hand away and picked up the seal in both hands. It – He?- latched on at once, yipping and chattering in her ear. Eevee only stared straight ahead after climbing to her head. At least they had some self-preservation skills in that quiet head of theirs? Meanwhile, the popplio was eager to investigate, sniffing and nuzzling and licking off murky sea water salt taste that likely still lingered after the fall.

She wanted to tell it to stop but she didn't think she could. So she picked them up and looked at Amanda. "I guess this one's mine."

Amanda grinned at that. "Good! Then let's battle."

Ayame tried not to twitch. "No."

Amanda pouted at once. 'Oh come on Aya. I'll even go easy on you." She tossed a pokeball that Ayame was sure hadn't been in her hand a second ago and out popped a red and yellow fox. Oh… it was cute! All of Ayame's mind summoned up images of a flareon dancing upon a stage. Somehow, she got the feeling he wouldn't appreciate that.

"Fennekin," she said out loud, containing that urge to run up and hug the little guy.

The fennekin barked agreement and Amanda smiled, ignoring the way the litten grunted in her lap. "That's right. Now, let's get going! C'mon, trainer!"

This really _was_ going easy on her. Who did Amanda think she was? The eevee stared at the fennekin but that was all it did. Huh. All right.

Ayame put the popplio down. "All ready, Isaiah?" The popplio barked, whether at his name or in agreement, Ayame couldn't tell. "Let's go then."

Isaiah moved forward. Amanda grinned, that bloodthirsty pro trainer expression that Ayame imagined her mother must have worn to survive Unova. "Tackle, then Ember!"

 _Two-stone throw,_ Ayame thought, recalling old, old training. She dropped her hand. "Hold fast, then close up Water Gun!"

Isaiah squeaked with alarm as the fox went rushing to ram him in the face. That said, he released a burst of water that hit the poor fox and made it stumble. That said, these pokemon seemed to really be little ones. They couldn't hit hard and couldn't take a hit hard. So this would have to be quick. "Tackle!" Ayame called, wincing in agitation. Kimono girls were supposed to learn to not rely on words, but that took time. Time she didn't exactly have mid-battle. "Speed yourself up with your flippers!"

Isaiah let out a squeak of alarm and obeyed, throwing himself right into fennekin. The fox stumbled and released a few new embers. Isaiah barked in pain and slapped Fennekin right on the nose. Fennekin jumped away, whining terror. He fired embers in retaliation.

"Dodge! One more Water Gun!"

"Ember!"

Ayame watched as the jet turned the pitiful little embers into falling soot and send the fox rolling until they smacked into Amanda's feet with a pitiful whine. Then she smiled and clapped her hands. "You did it, Isaiah!"

The little otter let out a bark of confusion, then whirled and ran to her. She scooped him up and hugged him tightly. There was a small hiccup of a pause then the flipper arms wrapped around her in return, excitable barks and squeaks making themselves clear in her chest.

Amanda returned the shivering, drenched fennekin, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "Is it always that exciting in Johto about it?"

"A first battle must always be exciting for a beginner," she recited, even adopting Lady Zuki's soft, strident tones. "If it bores them it is not a battle, only a bullying."

Amanda scratched her litten behind the ears. "You Kimono Girls are weird, you know that, right?"

"More like superstitious," Ayame admitted, reaching to pet her eevee on the top of the head. Still a reflexive lean but only that. It wasn't out of actual affection. According to that little addendum in trainer booklets, in case someone tried going to Orre during reconstruction and managed to find one even though they were supposedly rounded up, Shadow Pokemon showed reflexive affection first and real interest second. Until then, it was more like a ditto trying to be an eevee.

Though how she was going to do that in _Aevium,_ where Shadows weren't supposed to be in the first place, was beyond her.

Nothing to do about it now. She looked to speak to Amanda, figure out where she needed to go next (hadn't she mentioned at least one gym in her video spiel?) when the elevator opened. Professor Jenner strode down or rather nearly ran. If he hadn't likely been afraid of tripping, Ayame suspected he would have bolted down the stairs.

"You are so impatient, Amanda," he managed to wheeze out.

 _You don't look much better._ Ayame watched his shoulders heave like he'd barely waited for the elevator. "Is everything all right mister Jenner?" Isaiah turned his head to look at the professor. He gave the man a concerned bark, only to then promptly ignore him. Boy, he was a cheeky little thing huh?

The man's eyes went wide for a moment, noting the concern on her face (and probably the similarities to her mother. Though would her mother be concerned about others? Ayame would be the first to admit that she had no idea. "Ah, well, you see, I need to give you your kit and I heard-"

"Professor!" called someone from behind them. Ayame saw the man's face fall with disbelief and Amanda hide a snort behind her hand. Ayame tilted her head in concern. Was this common?

The man made himself smile and turn to the newcomer, who strode in with his scarf seeming to billow from the fans in the room. His dark eyes sparkled with joy. "I was looking for you!" he said, his boyish voice cracking slightly.

"Couldn't have guessed," Amanda muttered under her breath.

Jenner smiled a little more as if that would somehow. "Did you find anything interesting in Amethyst Cave, Ren?"

Ren shook his head, black hair falling over his forehead like bird feathers. "Nope, sadly. A lot of my pokemon got creamed by a random klink in a mining cart."

"Some idiot keeps dropping electric gems in there for fun apparently," Amanda said dryly. "We'd arrest him if we could."

"I dunno if it's worth that," Ren said, scratching his head sheepishly. "It was just a pain, that's all. I did hear some weird noises from the eastern side. Bug noises."

Amanda's eyebrow quirked. "Well, that's unusual. I'll look into it." She lifted her hand in a wave. "On that note, I'm off. Got more children to put on my conscience. Later!"

Ayame waved, with Isaiah barking once more in farewell.

Jenner shook his head in exasperation before looking at the two youths. Ayame narrowed her eyes a little at Ren. He was a little older than her, he squeaked like some of the higher monks when giving sutras to their first clientele of panicked Olivine mothers.

Was she going to be the baby of this adventure? Probably.

Jenner cleared his throat. "Well, then, Ren, if you wouldn't mind helping me with something else…?"

Ren beamed a little too wide now that Ayame was paying attention. "Sure! What do you need sir?"

Eevee let out a snuffle of breath. Ayame was fairly certain it wasn't a snort. Jenner only smiled. "Aya here is a newbie. Would you mind giving her a little practice?"

Ren smiled at her now, and Aya blinked. It had rather looked like he had sharp teeth for a second there. Weird. Maybe he was just one of those people who enjoyed winning, even if it was winning against newbies.

Ayame had to beat the guy just to get rid of that face what the hell. Instead, she smiled right back at him, looking even a little excited. Hell, she actually felt sort of excited, to be able to crush this guy like the kind of arrogant jerk he was. "I'm in!" She looked down at Isaiah curiously. "If he is."

The big black eyes stared at her for a good, long moment. Then the popplio beamed and gave a happy bark. He squirmed out of her arms and to the ground, taking his place on the battlefield once more. Ren raised an eyebrow.

"Cute," he said, tossing a pokeball. "Meet my newest partner. Froakie, upswing!" He threw his ball with a flourish and out popped a light blue frog. He croaked.

Ayame raised an eyebrow, resisting the urge to point out that starters were cute nine times out of ten. Then she let out a snort. "Growl!"

"Water Gun!"

Froakie was faster but only succeeded in getting Isaiah wet. With a bark and without any waiting, he threw himself forward, slamming into Froakie before he could escape. Isaiah bounced away with a bark, forming a bubble on the tip of his nose.

Ren winced and Ayame nodded to herself. Froakie was clearly a lightning bruiser type then. If tackle hit that hard too, then he was close to a fragile speedster, so he could attack well but not take a hit. Which meant that one good grass, electric, or if he gained a secondary typing (She could have sworn it was a dark type), any of those, would send him sprawling with one good blow if they were fast enough to hit or able to reel him in.

Which, since she was starting to think Isaiah was going to be a slow puppy seal, was the plan for now. "Tackle!"

Isaiah launched himself again, a dangerous projectile with no braking system except crashing and that was… exactly what happened. Froakie had tried to leap back, throw the bubble mane even. However, Isaiah's skull connected nastily with his throat and sent them both into the grass. Isaiah barked and clapped his paws together with pride, waddling away to Ayame. Froakie made to get up, head spinning from the blow. Then he fell back, head lolling on his shoulders.

Ren made a face. "Well, that was anticlimactic." He reached for the pokeball that had been returned to his belt. "Thanks, Froakie, good job."

Isaiah leaped over to her, beaming brightly. The result almost led to eevee toppling from her shoulder. The tiny claws sank into her shoulder. She didn't wince but straightened quickly. Pain or none, she needed this dress intact, at least for the foreseeable future until she could afford more clothes. At least better clothes. Ayame picked them both up, putting eevee on her head instead. They flopped listlessly there.

"Not bad," Ren said after a moment, looking at her through his hair. He held out a few bills and some change and she slipped into the pocket of her wallet. She would be so glad to get a pokedex. Trainer cards had limits on how much money you could get from beating the snot out of people. Pokedexes? Not so much. She had o idea why, something abo "Beginner's luck though. I'll get you next time."

"If you say so," she chirped, trying not to growl at the utter irritation this person already possessed upon her. She didn't want a next time, thank you very much. She wanted to survive this place and get out. Then again, if she could continue to beat him this easily and steal his pocket change, it might work out. So did that mean she would have to deal with him?

The look on the Professor's face indicated that was more than likely. Great.

"Anyway," Ren said, turning away from her to the professor once again. Ayame resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "I came to tell you that there was something weird going on in Amethyst Cave. I think I saw joltik making webs on the eastern side."

The man's eyes widened a fraction. "Joltik? That is..." He pinched his nose. "That is severely unusual. Are you willing to go back and investigate in the morning?"

Ren saluted. "Course. For now, I need to get these guys healed up." He left quickly and Ayame resisted the urge to sigh in relief like the professor did after the elevator closed. He wiped sweat from his brow and then pinned her with a curious stare. Ayame blinked back, not faking the innocent confusion on her face.

"Yes, sir?" she asked, shifting on her feet at the weight on her arms and shoulder.

He frowned a moment. "You… I can't put my finger on it, but you look… too much like her. Like that woman-"

"Do I?" She interrupted, brain working quickly. "I worked hard to make that possible-"

"Except your skin," he finished, eyes narrowing. "You are too dark."

Oh, _that_ was offensive. Ayame tried to ignore the prickling in her skin. "Well, there's nothing wrong with that."

"No," he agreed, a little too quickly. "No there is not." He stepped closer to her and placed a red and black box in her outstretched hand. "Your trainer's kit."

 _It looks like an Unova lunch box._ "Thank you!" she said aloud. Her face was hurting from smiling this wide for so long.

His shoulders seemed to shuffle down. "You're very welcome. Now, I… I'm not the most research happy of the professors." He smiled once more. "The academic knowledge of the pokedex interests me, but not quite as strongly. For me, the most important thing is the outliers, the unnatural. I like to learn about situations that don't happen for an ordinary trainer."

Hence why he was never learning about her eevee, ever.

"That said, I have a small concern." He shifted on his heels. "There are things happening in Aevium, dangerous things. I sent my daughter, Melia, out on an exploration of Goldenwood Forest to the north. The train ride is not even that far. I expected her to message me when she arrived, you see."

Rambling. Lying. Somewhere. Ayame couldn't place where exactly but there was something wrong with this explanation. "Would you like me to go look for her?"

He relaxed further. "Oh, would you? She needs to know to call me."

 _Boy, that sounds nice._ She was already getting a little homesick. "Sure, you can count on me."

And he could. As long as the lie had nothing to do with her, it would be fine. As long as he didn't catch her lies in return, it would be even better.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** And it's back! After some replaying of v9 and staring at the status bar of version ten I finally got past my mild irritation with Ren and shoved this out. Now, I did edit the first three chapters to make sure backstory was consistent (even though little backstory has been revealed). At the moment, depending on the results of Grand Dream City arc, but right now we have the story split into 4-6 parts, each with a cover of its own. I just got some new drawing software so I can work on the first cover and put it up. When it's up though, I'll make a note in the update. I'm very glad to get back to this! See you all next time where we meet Melia! And... well, we all know what's coming.

Ayame's Current Pokemon:

 _Owned_

Eevee (Shadow Type, Unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, ?, ?

Isaiah (popplio) Torrent, lvl 7 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Water Gun,

 _Borrowing_

Puff (jigglypuff)Friend Guard, lvl 46:Double-Edgee, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	5. Chapter 5 - The Power of a Kind Heart

_Warnings: God, cursing, issues_

* * *

 _Chapter Five – The Power of a Kind Heart_

"Here you are!"

Ayame bowed her head to the nurse once more, taking Isaiah's ball back into her hand. She rolled it over her fingers for a few moments, awe making her throat dry. She was a trainer now. A real trainer, not just one borrowing someone else's pokemon to practice with. Not just practicing catching for other, real members of the Theater, meant for plays and youths and children, for those born into the position. She wasn't a selected member of the group, useful and not allowed. She was a part of a great and terrible network, ready to slaughter them all to pieces and survive.

It was a bit melodramatic, but wilder regions like this one enjoyed that sort of weird nonsense. Right? A lot of the Johto stories were pretty violent anyway.

Speaking of the wild, she had some pokemon to catch. But before that, she had one more thing to do. Ayame brushed the pokeball with her fingers as she clipped it to the magnetized belt left in the kit. Sitting down on the nearest bench, she began to move things around in her bag, settling the pieces of the kit into her bag. Then, she went to the PC and registered, setting her trainer card in to confirm everything. The computer let out a cheerful beep at her. Ayame managed a smile and eevee shifted mindlessly to her other shoulder.

"Can you read minds now," she asked it. No response came back of course, but it made her feel better to talk to it. She'd heard that was helpful.

A nurse tapped her on the shoulder. Ayame twitched and turned to look at her. She forced a smile as quickly as she could.

"Yes?"

Thankfully, the nurse hadn't even seemed to notice and held out her hands. "Would you like to bring your eevee in for a rest as well?"

Ayame hesitated then nodded. "I think she'd love it." The woman hadn't minded healing her pokemon once she had figured out what it was and still didn't seem to now. Maybe the nurse thought she was an idiot. She merely laid her hand above the woman's own. Eevee obeyed, crawling over to the nurse and onto rapidly appearing the Chansey's offered tray.

The nurse then took the eevee's ball from her, affixing it to the machine. "Thank you very much! This being this Shadow Pokemon's first time in a center under your name, I'm going to draw up some data. Please return after you hear the intercom." At Ayame's slow, confused blink, the nurse shrugged. "It's Orre's old protocol. We've been using it in Aevium since Team Xen started moving about, just in case. Shadow Pokemon can be done. It's just normally a slow process." That explained why they needed more data despite Amanda having handled it last night.

Well, that was another slight delay, but if Melia or whoever did go missing, these few minutes spent by a kid getting prepared wouldn't hurt anyone. It wouldn't make her any more prepared to save her. So she headed back to her room to just sit down and think. Inside, it was blissfully cool and all of her things now no longer smelled of seawater and whatever was in it. It was easy to pack everything into her bag and watch it all pop away into particles.

The only problem now was the tiny white horse standing on her pillow.

That had not been there when she had left earlier.

It glowered at her, red and green eyes giving off heavy displeasure despite not having a mouth. " _There_ you are." A thin, nasal voice resonated in her mind. "If you took much longer, I was going to go try someone else. We are in a time crunch, you know."

Ayame's mouth dropped open. "Uh." Isaiah's ball trembled on its holster. "Uh… sorry, who are you?" _At least I didn't say what._ Maybe it was a psychic-type?

The glowering eyes narrowed into slits. "Oh come now," it said. "You worship the burning chicken, are you telling me that this _isn't_ the form humans have put upon me for millennia now? You swear to me enough."

She froze before she could drop the pokeball. _"Arceus?!"_

"Got it in one. Congratulations." It grumbled as it laid down on her pillow – she was never touching that again- before continuing. "And you are Ayame of Ecruteak, otherwise known as Aevia Lucille, daughter of Nancy Lucille, some famous human who did famous things, am I right?"

"Uh..." Her whole body was starting to tremble. "Y-Yeah, that sounds about right." She was going to throw up. In front of god. "She-She's an actress."

"So a fake human doing fake things." God yawned. "Right, got it. Not all that interested in her. She's just another pile of molecules."

"So-So am I." Her door slid shut behind her, followed by her sinking to the floor. Ayame swallowed. Okay, there was a god. God was real and he was in her temporary room. What in the name of the Hall of Origin had she just walked into? "What the hell makes me so special? And why are you so small?"

"Uh..." The god paused. "Well… you know, that's a good question, that first one." It looked down. "Also because I'd break this entire region at my full magnificence. So I'm just using a compressed image. Keep up."

Ayame shook her head. That kid Ren must have poisoned her or something. Somehow. Through air. "And… and the first part?" Honestly, she was surprised she hadn't thrown up and fainted at this point. God was in her sleeping room.

It looked back at her. "Right, that. You happen to be at the right place at a shitty time. Nice job hitting a godless abomination with a pokedoll by the way, good stuff. I wish I could figure out those things. So uh, we were gonna send somebody else, but he's like, seven and stupid. And the other candidates won't answer my calls, and you're in the middle of the list. So uh, you want to save your mother, right? Save the world for me too? Thanks."

It took Ayame a few seconds to gather any sense out of that babble. Then she blurted out, "No."

If Arceus had an eyebrow, they would have raised it. "No?"

"No!" Ayame repeated, more forcefully this time. "Do I, do I look like someone who is good for world saving to you?"

"You are a middle choice," Arceus reminded her.

"For good reason, I bet!" she snapped back. "I got lucky with my life!"

"Barring the Steelix in an enclosed area-"

Her fists clenched. "One guy!"

"And your ninth birthday. And your mother dropping you as a baby like that burning chicken did on your tiny head, and your inability to-"

"Shut up!" Ayame shouted before her eyes widened in horror. _Great, I'm totally going to be erased from existence because god knows my dirty laundry._

Arceus however, only smirked, a line of a mouth beginning to form on their face to do so. "And that is why I'm asking _you_ and not the other one. You have got _nerve._ We don't get many heroes with nerve these days. Only prepubescent derps with a terrible tendency towards justice and do-good whatnot. All that virtuous nonsense. Only gets you so far. I designed it, so I can't say I hate it. Still. Again. Only gets you so far. I mean, _Red_. Red was an unfeeling monster when he started out with that pikachu of his. But so is Kanto. It's why we have Mewtwos being sold by the psychic pound from there."

Ayame decided to bypass all of that, thanking her stars that she was not disintegrated and ask instead, "There's someone else?" She seriously just wanted to find her mother and get to a semi-normal journey. She would happily foist off honor and glory and superpowered crap onto someone else if she could. Pokemon were enough of a superpower, thank you very much.

"Sure." Arceus hopped down. "There's always someone else, kid. I wouldn't even be asking you if you weren't in the area. There are a couple others, but this one would jump at the chance to like: be awesome. Since by their own definition they already are. Their name's Melia or something. I lose track of names without Mew. That ring a bell?"

Ayame paused for a moment, looked straight at god, and then let out the quietest f-bomb in the universe. That was mostly due to internalized fear of being knocked on the head by a parent.

Could she actually foist this random quest on some stranger she had never met before? Probably. This sounded like another kid though. She was already apparently missing. Was she that much of an awful person?

"The last time you took responsibility you lost most of your hearing, brat," Arceus said dryly. "You can always foist it. No one will know. Or care. Until they find out, but who needs 'em then?"

Ayame blinked. "Then why the hell did you ask me?"

"Cause you would have wanted me to ask." The oversized pony hopped from her bed. "Legend of Arceus and the Hoopa Wishes and all of that."

"The what?" She'd never heard of _that one._ And she'd read all the mysticism of at least four regions.

"Right, right Kalos mysticism." He waved a hoof. "Get going. Your eevee's done being prodded at. And make yer choice brat. The universe ain't waiting forever."

Ayame was all too happy to leave, slamming the door behind her with the quietest 'nope' god had ever heard. They let out an exhale they didn't need.

"Was that really necessary?" asked a high-pitched chirpy voice, much to its owner's chagrin and to Arceus' amusement. For a creature who really ought to be taken seriously, Mew looked and sounded nothing like a great pinnacle of Creation.

Arceus only trotted across the room, stepping over random papers and the fallen sheet, just to see Mew twitch. Their eyes sparkled and the room began to right itself from when Arceus had landed in it with a little too much power. Brat. "It was," he finally said. "Simply because she won't take the out. She's thinking about it, mind you, but this is a deal that's irresistible to someone like her. How else will she be able to steel herself?"

"I thought the entire point of you helping her was to keep her life as ordinary as possible." Mew floated by the window, transforming lazily into a horribly disjointed Abra. Its legs dangled over the now neat sheets in the ugliest little twists, toes pointed inward for no reason at all. Its catlike ears didn't twitch. The transformed mew didn't even yawn. Arceus could never appreciate the transforming pokemon's sense of humor. "Not go and tell her to fix this humanmade mess."

"Was it?" Arceus lifted their head up and rolled back onto the rug, careless of position. They had spent a long time sleeping after all. If it hadn't been necessary to have a trip to the metaphysical bathroom so to speak, they likely would have continued to sleep, leaving the world under the loving care of their multitudes of powerful 'children'. Except for the so-named creation dragons. Those three were eternally grounded. "I suppose it was. Oh well. She'll involve herself in the end. That soul was notoriously nosy."

Not that they wanted her to, to be fair. It was just easier to pretend they didn't.

Mew grunted. "I'll take your word for it. She was perfectly normal whenever I passed through Ecruteak."

"Nosy is not a synonym for normal, last I processed a human language."

"Shut it."

"Don't tell God to shut it, you rebellious poof of fluff."

"Which you designed."

Arceus felt their eye twitch and vanished from the plane of existence. Mew shuddered with amusement, returning to their small, catlike form. Then, shutting off the light, they went to sink under the bed.

It wasn't like they had anything better to do aside from sleep themselves.

* * *

Ayame, having run full tilt away from the rooms, heard none of this. In fact, she hadn't even heard her name being called for her eevee. She would need to give them a name at some point. But that would be later when she could no longer hear the blood roaring in her ears and the sick, sick fear that was threatening to throw up all over the nice, freshly disinfected linoleum.

"Fuu-chan," she whispered to the empty hallway, fingers curled into tight fists, Isaiah's ball still shaking at her waist. "You promised me. You said I could still be _normal_."

Normal was relative for a trainer, sure. A normal trainer was defined, by her family's standard idea of normalcy, as someone who could go across the region of their choice, and if they got into problems of this magnitude, it was either by accident or as a consequence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time beforehand. This felt _nothing_ like an accident. This felt like god given destiny, no matter what God actually said, and if she couldn't get herself to convince Melia to take up the job of saving the region that she likely had the nationalistic pride for, then she would be taking the fate of who knew how many people into her hands. And be expected to save them.

Ayame jumped from her thoughts, looking at her fingers as energy sparked yellow and red and purple and green and blue and danced away from the safety of her palms to float harmlessly in the air. She made herself breathe. She breathed and breathed until the lights were no longer swimming over her head and her olive fingers were just toned olive and no longer dancing ablaze.

"I'm screwed," she whispered to no one in particular.

Ayame let out a shuddering breath and made herself continue walking.

 _After all these years of not seeing my mother, after finally getting to meet her beyond a phone screen once in a blue moon, I have to save the world to even get to know her._

Ayame almost laughed. Almost.

She looked around the lobby as she entered from the sight, the realization hurtling into her like the boy across the room and his caterpie: _I have no idea what this girl looks like._

Ayame almost threw up her hands and marched to the counter instead. Eevee and their ball were handed off to her in short order and Ayame resigned herself to being the walking observatory of the young shadow pokemon as they, by their own will, trotted up to her arm and onto her right shoulder. Had her mother been trying to heal this one herself? She had been planning to give her a gift, after all. Or had this been an attempt to keep it from the weirdo's hands?

"Thank you," she said to the poor receptionist, who was looking at her the same way Ayame had seen people do when they walked into Morty's gym and saw her there on the floor with a shuppet. "Do you know where Amanda is? I think she has something of mine."

Ayame was going to get the rest of those documents now. It would take her weeks, months to even think of translating them… probably. If she was lucky. She had better start now. "And, erm, where is the train station?"

The receptionist told her both and Ayame went after handing in her paperwork, looking down at her feet until she managed to make it outside. Not even Amanda could get her to look.

It was raining hard once again, skies a terrible, cloudy gray that headed to black at the edges. Looking up at it made her think of long days in the training field, stuck meditating under the cold waterfall of Mt. Mortar with a Kimono Girl's watchful eye nearby to make sure none of the group turned blue. They wouldn't even attempt to bring someone in even if you got sick. It used to drive her adoptive parents crazy when she would come home, drenched and sniffling with cold. Until recently.

Now nothing really left her cold for long.

The rain fell and as she closed her eyes, Ayame could almost imagine the raindrop sizzling on her outstretched palm.

Shaking herself from the image, Ayame set off towards the train station. It wouldn't do to set her clothes on fire.

As she walked, the nostalgic clang of a bell caught her ears. Ayame expanded Isaiah's ball, releasing the blue seal to splash happily into a puddle. He barked at her, and the pure sound brought a smile to Ayame's face.

"You didn't like that guy either, huh?"

Isaiah barked again and a little chime came out in response from a small bush.

Ayame swallowed and pulled out an unused pokeball from her bag. "Check if that's a pokemon, kay boy?"

Isaiah did this by eagerly letting out a jet of water from his nose. An oversized bell flew out of the bush and rolled onto the concrete.

Ayame's expression sobered into a thin, decisive frown. This she could do. She could catch a pokemon. She could raise them. She could battle with them. She could maybe save her mother.

She certainly could not save the world.

Ayame was so distracted that she didn't notice the rain falling and turning into steam on her skin.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** And we're back! I'm sorry for that delay, I was doing another round of edits due to some reviews (Thanks, wheels.) And now we have this one up to snuff too! Strider, I'm not sure I can actually please you. Ayame is going to avoid being Sue as much as possible, but she's going to have to survive things somehow. And, like it or not, there are some battles she's going to have to win. Also, Arceus. Let me know what you think of him, especially as we go on.

 _Ayame's Current Pokemon_

 _Owned_

Eevee (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, ?,?

Isaiah (popplio) Torrent, lvl 8 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Water Gun, Disarming Voice

Trill (chingling) Levitate, lvl 4 Moves: Wrap, Growl

 _Borrowing_

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	6. Chapter 6 - Lending a Helping Hand

_Chapter Six – Lending a Helping Hand_

Ayame did eventually notice this and immediately had to check that her clothes were not on fire. The rain had prevented that, lucky her, but she still needed a few minutes to catch her breath and not, well, cry. Eusine wasn't here to let her do it after all. She didn't need him to be either. She was strong. She had passed the tests of the kimono girls with flying colors. She didn't need to have the comfort of an adult who knew what they were doing.

… Though really, she wanted it more than she could put into words.

She kept walking, tossing the pokeball for her new pokemon up and down. A chingling. It was cute but it relied on happiness and nighttime for an evolution. That itself was fine but if these clouds didn't clear up, it would be hard to give them the moonlight they needed.

Not to mention they were fragile in a fight. She remembered a trainee who had one. It had been fine until the thing had gotten constantly dented.

Trill floated next to her ear, chiming softly. She glanced at him, watching him chime quite happily. "We're obvious like this," she told him. He only chirped again, settling for a moment on her head before floating away once more.

Chingling were weird.

She kept walking, stopping only to battle some stray trainers and when a loud scream came from a strange building that looked like it could have been an indoor shopping mall in the past. It had all the windows like the Goldenrod Department Store, except these were deliberately tinted so you couldn't see anything.

Still, the sounds that came from it were enough to convince Ayame to hightail it even more quickly towards the train station the kindly attendant had pointed her towards. Trill, well, let out a trill.

Ayame sighed when she slowed down. She needed friends. The eevee nearly fell from her shoulders again and Ayame felt her clothes attempt to give. "You need more self-preservation," she told it. Him. Her. She wasn't sure.

Eevee only blinked anyway. Well, she'd take that at least.

She dove under an alcove as another drizzle started up. There was a couple sitting out in the rain, sharing sandwiches under their umbrella. The girl on the other side of her boyfriend looked disgruntled but the teenage boy seemed so happy that he was with her Ayame could almost see it radiating off of him even from that distance.

Ayame couldn't help but smile. The sight of a couple trying to enjoy themselves in the rain was just so normal. _Guess even Aevium has people who live normal lives. When this is over, I'll be one of them. Better take notes._ Ayame laughed to herself and took off at a run towards the train station. Inside, however, she was met with blue light, dull and barely enough to see the room at large. She shifted her fingers, warmth rushing to the tips. The hearing device crackled in her bag and Ayame winced. She supposed that would be a point to save up for.

Then a voice called, "Who's there," and a man looked up from underneath what appeared to be the service desk. His conductor hat was slightly askew, but he managed to smile at her and she rather thought he meant it. Quickly, Ayame shut her eyes, turning away from the warmth at her hands. She stepped forward, a nervous smile on her face.

"Hi," she mumbled, because she still wasn't feeling that talking thing anyway. She'd just talked to god, everything else was a much lower experience for the moment. "What happened?"

She'd figured going straight to the point was better because this looked like another delay and another thing to add to what was looking like a shitty week.

The man smiled up at her. "I'm not sure, honestly. There's been an electrical disruption. One of the civilians, Melia, went to go look into it in the sewers. Down there a lot of kids like to hang out and cause problems and we can't leave the place unmanned."

 _I'm not sure if this is cowardice, common sense, or one of Mom's movies._ Ayame thanked the man and left, hurrying back into the rain and no longer caring if it steamed over her skin.

She had no idea where the sewers were, so it was time to start looking everywhere and get some new teammates. A chingling and a popplio were hardly enough to survive this cutthroat region. She would have to train.

* * *

"Water Gun," Ayame mumbled, rubbing her eyes free of water. Isaiah blasted the small, sparkling bird and knocked it to the concrete. She winced appropriately and threw a ball to catch it. "Trinity," she murmured to the ball, once it stopped shaking.

Just as she picked it up, however, there was a very loud tweet, just over the sound of laughter from a distance away. Ayame looked up to see three men parking their motorcycles and creeping closer to the edge of a pier.

Ayame frowned, then crept down the railing. Normally like she'd said to Arceus (still messed up!), she had very little interest in saving people. Helping people was fine, being nice was okay, but trying to save people was just more harm than good in the long run. Cause then you got expected to because it was who you were. When you just helped people, it was under the umbrella of people are nice, therefore one more nice stranger.

That said however, she couldn't help but wonder why the hell there were grown men trying to pin down a starly. A _starly_. Were they rare or something? Was it like some exotic pet thing?

Aevium was weird. Or poor. Or both.

Still, it was a starly. It was a harmless bird whatever were they doing ganging up on it like a bunch of cowards. But… she was a newbie trainer. There was no reasonable way she could just… beat three guys at once, even if she had trained her pokemon as she'd walked. She wouldn't be able to beat them without a lot of luck.

At the very least though, she could cause a ruckus. What was the worst that could happen? She drowned? Hah.

There was a soft cackle from the comfort of her hat and out floated what could have been confused for a gray rag with eyes.

"Calia," she murmured. "Ssh. You'll get me caught."

There was another cackle. " _That's the point isn't it, little darling? You want to get caught! Before you fall!"_

Calia was definitely not staying on her team for long if she could help it. Not until she was in a better place to train him emotionally, as you did with ghost pokemon. Ghosts fed off of feelings, f-Morty had said, all feelings. The dead had more than happiness and sadness to guide them. The more unstable your feelings were, the more the ghost fed and hungered and eventually possessed and overtook. And Ayame, from years in Ecruteak, years in agony of bleeding, sore feet and the familiar sensation of battle overwhelming adrenaline and years crouched in a gym in the dark watching challengers wander in the gloom and incense unknowing of the bones beneath their feet, knew she was not good for a shuppet. Not now.

What a shame. She really loved ghosts. Not as much as fairies (it was the only thing she and her mother had in common) but they were close!

" _I suppose, I suppose. If you kill them quietly, it's much easier to dump the bodies. Or the bones, when you're through. There's lots of water to drown them."_ Calia giggled and stuck out his tongue.

Ayame did not want to know what kind of child unintentionally birthed this shuppet. It was too smart and too crazy for its own good. "I'm not killing them."

" _I don't see why not."_

Ayame hissed through her teeth and dragged Calia back into his pokeball. That was it, she was _boxing_ him. She didn't care how strange and wild and weird this region was. She didn't care if she might need him later, she was not good for this she was not ready for this, not a little bastard with a tendency to look inside her brain.

"Deli has a much better behaved shuppet than you," she told the ball, which didn't even react. Hmph!

Somehow, the men had not heard her talk to herself as she approached. But then they were muttering to themselves about the starly. The cheap starling that were a dime a dozen at the edges of Twinleaf and were imported to Kalos to give the fletchling something else to fight that had a chance. That maybe wasn't the case here. She couldn't be sure.

Still, she figured that she could take them. If they needed three people to wrangle a bird type, the most they probably had was a few poison types and maybe a couple of normal types and some bugs. (Not that those couldn't be dangerous, in the hands of decent trainers.) Things that were hanging around here for small kids to capture, youngin's to look for.

She could only hope, she hadn't taken the risk of wandering into East Gearen yet. There were people screaming about AP or something over there.

"You all ready?" she whispered. Isaiah nodded, managing the quietest of borks. Trinity only flapped her wings in acknowledgment. Aya nodded. "Okay, Trinity, _dive!"_

Trinity took off and launched herself forward with a battle cry, embers flying from her gullet and setting the man's jacket to smoke. (Fletchling had the ability to smoke and make fire, but they were just plain old terrible at it. No flame organs.) He swore, loudly and danced about to throw it off. He waved his fists as Trinity dove and swirled between them. The embers didn't do much but the pecks and scratches did, blood oozing from open cuts. Ayame pushed herself up and forward and did what any self-respecting Tohjo trainer when they were outnumbered by thugs, had the element of surprise and an eevee on their arm, precariously perched.

She kicked him in the groin.

The squeak was worth it.

"Isaiah!" she called, jumping to the side.

Her popplio, by now poking his head out of the water, fired a jet of the grey looking stuff out and struck squeaker in the face. Just seeing it almost made Ayame shudder because she'd almost _drowned in that._ But she didn't focus on the thought really. It was an absent-minded consideration as the bald one lunged for her neck and missed. The meaty fingers closed around a thin wrist -birdlike, her mind mocked, birdlike- and she was yanked up, handily. She didn't squirm. She merely stared.

"Lookit what we have here," the third croaked. "We got ourselves a little hero!"

Oh didn't that sum her up now."Let me go." She kept her voice level. This was a _thug,_ not a monstrous pokemon. This didn't even bear being frightened of. Even in this environment (being damp was a mild problem but she could get over it really fast if it was necessary), this was still doable.

The three men laughed, guffawing sounds, one a pitch too high for his own liking she could tell. "Let me go, she says," sneered the second. "Good breeze'll knock you down, it will."

Ayame stared at him blankly, not amused. Trinity landed on Isaiah's head and waited. Isaiah was visibly shaking. Poor thing. If he wanted to leave, now was the time.

Then again, the murky polluted water would wreck that idea.

"Might." Her eyes flicked towards the starly flying to find space on poor Isaiah's face. Trill took to hovering instead, wings flapping against the rain. "You'll regret doing it though."

Her brain was not working. It had gone from the timid little thing she was supposed to be, that da and her cousin had warned her was better, safer, healthier, all the way to the tired, flat -earted, unforgiving thing her mother had tied into her in two years time.

That the Kimono Girls had turned her into all of her life.

Survival came first.

" _I'm not killing them."_

" _I don't see why not."_

She wasn't sure if this was a region where people typically roughed up kids who interfered with their illegal business, or they just killed them like they did in Sinnoh. She wasn't in the mood to find out.

"Eevee," she said. The feline's eyes narrowed into slits from her side. " _Sic 'em."_

The eevee leaped high and smashed her tiny skull, forehead first, into the head of the man holding Ayame. He swore and dropped her, prompting the man with the most horrible mohawk (She had pink hair, she knew hair dye when she saw it.) to throw a ball. Out came what in respects was a weasel with a haircut.

Irritation built up in Ayame's cheeks.

The one normal type they had, it was a gods -ack- accursed _yungoos_.

The crossbreed of a patrat, a zangoose and likely some human being, those were rumored to have come out from Unovan and Alolan science experiments. Ayame was halfway certain they came from the depths of the flame circles of the reverse world. They ate like slaking except of the carnivorous variety. Did someone import them as a bloody joke?

And she had no fighting types. Not even a _pikipek._

 _Joy._

"Eat that mutt!" she heard as she caught herself and straightened up. It was so far away for a moment. Her hearing aids crackled none too kindly. They had to at least survive until she found her mother, there was no way she could afford new ones. Her family couldn't afford new ones.

"Rush!" And eevee rushed, smacking the wormy little creature on the side. Ayame whistled sharply, forcing herself to remember the way the sensation vibrated on her throat. "Back, back!"

Newbie mistake, she was lucky she hadn't said the full name of the attack. She was even luckier that it hadn't gotten worse.

"Water Gun!" she barked instead and held out her arm. The starly flitted to it in fright. "Dive!"

Isaiah and Trinity, bless them really, obeyed without a lick of hesitation, smashing into the yungoos and sending it skidding.

"Three on one!" bellowed the squeaking one. Ayame was already crouching, preparing to move again when she heard the faint sound of crackling, like thunder and lightning in a singular cocktail. "Cheap little brat!"

"Oh, it's fine when it's _people_ , is it?" she said under her breath. What she called out louder was, "Finish him Isaiah! Trinity, get the others!"

They did as ordered and as Trinity dove, the yungoos' oversized jaws sank into her leg.

Trill screamed and shot an ember into the Pokemon's eye.

Ayame shot forward, starly sinking talons deep into her arm and going ignored. She caught the fletchling gently in both hands and whistled.

Isaiah barked in confusion but her eevee was off like a shot. She did _not_ want to think about what that might mean. (Shadows are battle pokemon, warped like nothing else, just like you, Aya, you fool.)

Through the crackling of the hearing aids, she heard the yungoos _scream in pain._

"Yungoos!"

The trainer had the decency to recall it, shame and rage flushing his face hot.

"You cheatin' thievin' brat," he hollered as his friends grouped around her, blocking the easy way out. "I'mma break all yer bones!"

Ayame inhaled, and the air tasted wet. She bent her knees, recalled her pokemon. Eevee took to her other shoulder. The bird on the first wouldn't stop trembling.

"Nowhere to run," the angry punk said, fists going up. Another ball.

 _Sure about that_? She bit down on her bottom lip, put one foot back-

Then the tiny dingy that had been bobbing about on the other side of the dock, exploded.

It wasn't the explosion of dynamite, but glass and wood and metal and plastic shards flew from the force of giant earth spikes from the depths of the water below.

 _Some twisted version of bulldoze,_ Ayame thought, analyzing quickly, eyeing each spike to see which could hold her weight against all odds. _Who made it?_

"Well now," said a voice, soft and elegant and for some reason chilling the temperature. "This seems very uncouth of you gentlemen. Cornering this little dove. Just where did you think you were going?"

If Ayame tilted her head, she would almost think that was her cousin talking. But Delila was off in some other gym circuit. She had no idea Ayame was _here_.

This was dashed by the sight of a floating woman in flowing pink robes and a book in her hands. Her eyes, a brown that veered awfully close to red, locked eyes with her. The woman smiled.

"Oh no," she said. "This simply won't do at all. You boys are in need of an education."

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ And we're back again! I'm sorry it keeps going so dead. I have my motivation and it's... get to the Sheridan arc, where while I keep to the plot I also tend to keep... messing with the plot. At the moment I'm debating on upping the fic to M, but I have yet to decide. This fic is likely gonna get ugly. What do you all think?

Ayame's team is going to change _rapidly_ throughout the fic. We will just see the active team members for now.

Also hi Karen.

Active Team

 _Eevee_ (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

 _Isaiah_ (popplio) Torrent, lvl 10 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Water Gun, Disarming Voice

 _Trill_ (chingling) Levitate, lvl 10 Moves: Wrap, Growl, Astonish, Confusion

 _Trinity_ (fletchling) Big Pecks, lvl 8 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Quick Attack

 _Calia_ (shuppet) Cursed Body, lvl 7 Moves: Knock Off, Screech, Night Shade

Borrowing

 _Puff_ (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	7. Chapter 7 - The Women in the Room

_Warning for violence and shouting and parent and child arguments._

* * *

 _Chapter Seven - The Women in the Room_

Magic, like always, made it all happen so quickly.

One moment, Ayame was surrounded by three giant goons and plotting how to get away from them without causing too much of a fuss and the next the men were stuck in place by the woman and her glowing hands.

"You poor pathetic souls," she proclaimed. "You three will learn at the Alvavors Ruins, as my servants. I propose that won't be a problem, will it now Charles?" She regarded the man with the mohawk as she spoke.

"My name is David!" he hollered as energy lifted up him and his motorcycle both.

"Goodbye Charles!" she sang as he flew away. The other two rose into the air, squirming and cursing. "You as well Roger! And who could forget sweet Peter?"

Once they were out of sight, however, the woman's strange smile dropped. She stepped closer to Ayame. Isaiah leaped from the water with an ungainly splash to stand in front of her. The woman paused and laughed.

"What a devoted creature," she said, regarding Ayame up and down. "And you, my dear, are a devoted little trainer. And so young, at that. Most people don't even try here until they're fifteen, you know?"

"I-I know," Ayame agreed. Because she did know. Her fathers had been insistent to warn her of that when Mum had proclaimed to be taking her there anyway. Certainly there were younger trainers, but they didn't get very far. They stayed close to home. Strong pokemon didn't mean much of anything, even with diverse move pools or good stats if they couldn't handle the same thing only better, or the trainer couldn't make a strategy. Most children simply could not do those things.

But then most children weren't drilled from the moment they rose to the moment they fell into bed.

"So that makes you quite different, doesn't it?" The woman stepped closer, smiling still. "Don't worry, I have no interest in hurting children." She paused, as if to think about it. "Unless they're _brats_ , of course. But that makes sense, right? No one wants a brat with super powered monsters, yes?" She was close enough now to pat Ayame on the head, and did so without hesitation.

Ayame masterfully controlled her twitching eye and didn't answer. The brown eyes looking into hers were so close to red and they got even closer the more this woman was in her face.

The woman stepped back. "You aren't a brat at all. You understand silence. You're like a little dove, interested in peace." She looked at the destroyed boat. "I wonder if the person on this boat had a family." Just as quickly as she thought of it, she dismissed the thought. "I suppose it's irrelevant. Stone is a much better companion, in my opinion." She glanced back at Ayame once more. "Go on now, little dove. I'll be taking care of this, I suppose."

Ayame hesitated, because obeying too soon felt like it wasn't a particularly smart or courageous idea. "Who are you?"

The woman paused and then smiled again. "My name is Karen, little dove. Now fly away before it starts to storm."

This time, Ayame did go, gears whirling in her head.

No, she was nothing like Delila after all. Delila valued people.

This woman valued use.

Suddenly, her bag felt heavier on her shoulders. Like the woman was staring at it and knew without asking, what was buried far at the bottom of it.

Something even her mother hadn't been allowed to see.

* * *

After returning the starly and giving another thorough investigation of Oceana Pier (in which Ayame discovered people paid you to do errands for them and some idiot kept a jar of rare candies on their window sill, enough to make her have to fight a drastically underpowered pyroar with the help of a malnourished buizel), Ayame made a tentative venture to the eastern side of the city.

She went south first, mainly because if she was a trainer who had too much free time and there were areas to catch pokemon at, she would go and catch new ones.

To be fair, she still had no idea what Melia looked like. But she was sure she would find a trainer or… or something! Right? She… she had to be optimistic! It would be a problem if she wasn't. Everyone at home would worry if she called them in tears.

So she ventured into the grassy park. There were no humans in sight but in turn, she could hear the rustling of the grass and whispering sounds of pokemon.

There wasn't much to worry about in terms of having a team at all, at least. It wouldn't be a well-balanced one. Considering that one guy accidentally gave her a voltorb…

The taller grass reached just to her forehead, which made her curl her fists. She was gonna get taller someday! Only a little! But she was never gonna be shorter than _grass_ again! Ever.

As Ayame nodded to herself in determination, she saw the blades rustle. Her fingers curled around the nearest pokeball as the rustling grew faster and faster until a sparkling kitten came tumbling out of the depths into some weeds. It was squeaking and screeching with dismay and ran past them to hide behind Ayame's leg.

Aya glanced at it and back at the hole it had made. _An aipom_? It would be the most obvious. Monkey pokemon, of any species, loved to play some pranks and annoy people. Bullying a skitty was literally kicking a kitten, though, and surely aipom wouldn't go that far…?

She risked another glance at the skitty and saw thin scratches down one side, oozing little droplets of blood. Blades… wouldn't be a pawniard, those liked to be closer to the city than this and there were no bisharp. They used abandoned buildings for shelter. Honedge… honedge were ghosts and too overt, they wouldn't survive her. It might be… anything that could learn leaf blade. A treecko? A chikorita?

What came out after a few moments seemed like a bipedal praying mantis. Its red eyes blinked at her, then towards the skitty, then back at her. Ayame stared, running through that mental pokedex. Alolan. Definitely. So… what was that grass type? Lomantis? Fomantis?

Ayame released Trinity. At least it wasn't raining now. "Get them!"

Trinity zigzagged forward, smacking into the little grass type. It stumbled and waved its scythes around as it began to spin. Leafs burst from its body, glowing green and floating forward. "Spin!"

Trinity chirped, likely something along the lines of - I know what I'm doing, you know - before spinning upside down and knocking the leaves away, the tackle hitting the grass type right in the face. It stumbled back.

The skitty squeaked with glee until the off course leaves smacked it in its beady nose. It whined in pain. Aya hesitated a moment, then popped a pokeball over its head. It wasn't like she could use the eevee or jigglypuff, and the latter wasn't registered for her anyway. Worst came to worse, this would be the first pokemon she sent home. Skitty were powerful and had a wide movepool, but moon stones did not come easy or cheap. Still, seemed like a timid thing. Could do with some confidence, and protection for its sparkling fur. She'd never seen a shiny look like that.

Did Aevium have different _shinies_ too? She was starting to wish that she had taken the ship to Tandor instead. They could have gotten tickets.

Not that being shiny was all that great. They were likely to get pokerus, yes, but pokerus was an unstable, unsteady virus that no one was quite sure how it worked and for all they knew it killed your pokemon faster.

Trinity's loud screeches caused Ayame to turn and see her bird smacking the -yep, pokedex says fomantis got it- with her beak, furious with it, somehow. "Trinity stop, you'll kill it!" She assumed they wouldn't but birds ate plants for snacks. she couldn't take the risk. Fomantis could grow into powerful, powerful attackers. Their biggest weakness was their speed, but a lurantis, if she remembered right, could tank quite a hit.

Trinity fell back and flapped back to her shoulder, chirping joy and delight. Ayame gently swatted the bird back off of her shoulder. The pokemon would be vulnerable if the ball didn't work. Also it was hard to aim with a bird on your back. She tossed another ball and it snagged around one of the fomantis' leaves and pulled it inside. Now Aya pulled out her pokedex, ready in case it broke out.

Really, she was surprised she'd even been _given_ a pokedex. In Kanto and Johto, they had been considered _honors_ on Tohjo, at least where she lived. Red visiting her hometown had been a big deal for a solid week. It had been the one time outside of her circle of fellow oddballs that people had wanted to talk to her.

 _Did you see his pokedex?_

 _Did he talk to you?_

 _How did he battle?_

 _I heard he was super quiet! Was it true?_

It had been none of their business, as far as she was concerned. It had been up to the Kimono Girls who had gone to meet him after his fight with the gym leader. It had been none of their business that Red was actually quite chatty and had been intensely interested in her ways with the ghosts and the way you stepped with respect. It would never be their business that she knew something about him no one else could know.

She had been able to tell them he was a phenomenal battler, and he and her father had fought a six-on-six, to a draw. She had told them how the fog and spirits roiled, whispering her ears even though she couldn't see them and how they had called him a shining star.

She had told them he owned a pokedex, and had a battered and solid presence. An honored soldier.

The pokeball in front of her clicked shut, though it sounded very unhappy about it. Aya picked up the ball, and went to heal the pokemon. So far, she had four. The first gym… well, she had no idea what it was, but she'd have to find out soon enough to get something to counter it with. Hopefully it wouldn't be too urgent…

* * *

Twenty minutes (and ramblings about an underground library) later, Ayame was wandering the city once more. Her skitty sniffed around her feet, hopping on stubby paws and swishing her pale tail. She seemed none too bothered by the fact that she was on the same team as her bully (and she would talk to him about that later if he tried that again) but that may have to do with the fact that Ayame fully intended to send the kitten to her home once Morty had confirmed the shuppet was safely in her cousin's hands.

Beggars couldn't be choosers yes, but there was no reason to make pokemon fight if they didn't have to. She would find her loyal friends, her good team and _then_ , when she knew what she was good at and what she wasn't, she would train the pokemon who wanted to be trained. A good home was a start. And they might find someone they liked in the meantime.

The Kimono Girls had taught her well. There was no point in training a pokemon who didn't want to be trained, in catching one who didn't want to be caught. It was insulting to them, to their freedom, to nature. So she didn't. It was the reason she sometimes woke up and saw Suicune stealing her family's tamatos. Or Celebi passed over Mt Mortar, taking another trip to Blackthorn city with rawst and pinap in its arms.

A loud (correction: Screaming loud) guitar solo blared across the street. It was almost as bad as that cackling screeching in that weird train station building. Ayame paused to cover her ears, unsettling the Eevee to fall right into her hood. Eevee did not leave it, merely adjusted their weight to curl up in the warm area. Aya hesitated to pull up the hood with the eevee on it but decided against it. It probably wouldn't make hearing this racket any easier.

There were people looking on out of windows as she passed. They all looked positively disgusted by it, but somewhere in there seemed familiarity. Was this common? A holiday? A ritual? The only places she heard loud music like this were outside the game corner and that one gym in Unova with the punk rockstar. (She was actually super cool and had shown her how to play string instruments when they'd stopped by.) Was this one of her songs? It sounded like it.

"VERONICA!" The single word cut across the street and down the block and rattled windows. "TURN THAT DOWN!" At the sound of it, people shut their windows and doors, seemingly satisfied.

Skitty peeped at her foot. Ayame picked her up and shrugged. She had no idea. The kitten only mewed again.

If it was possible, an even louder voice countered. "HOLD ON! THE BEAT IS ABOUT TO DROP!"

"THE ONLY BEAT ABOUT TO DROP IS THIS SURROUND SOUND ONTO YOUR SKULL, YOUNG LADY!"

Ayame felt her hearing aids crackle with dismay. "Noise is reaching inappropriate levels. A lower setting is recommended," it chimed. Ayame did as she was told as the shouting match continued. There was a cracking sound again as a stereo crashed out of one of the few open windows of a house. It broke the upper part of the window, shattering and leaving only the disc unharmed in the sparking wreckage.

"MOM WHAT THE FUCK!"

Ayame winced, returning the now frantically scratching cat to her ball.

"YOU KNOW VERY WELL WHAT!" the other's pitch is higher, wilder somehow, than the girl who'd been playing the music. "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A GYM LEADER VERONICA. AN EXAMPLE TO THESE YOUTH TO ASPIRE TO!"

"WASN'T IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION MA! I PAID FOR THAT STEREO!"

"TOO BAD! YOU CAN PAY FOR IT SOMEWHERE ELSE! I'VE HAD IT!"

And out the window next came a girl with purple hair, tumbling over and landing on a bush, cursing loudly as she fell. The loud crash and groan of pain almost made Ayame wince. At least it was only off of one floor. You could get up from that.

"That woman…" croaked the teen from the bush. "She's killed me for sure this time…"

Well she was definitely hurt. The bush had definitely cushioned the worst of it however. She was clearly talking out her ass, as Deli would put it.

"Hey kid…"

Ayame blinked as eevee wound its way up from the comfort of her hood. "Yes?"

"You saw her… that wretch… she's gone and killed me…"

Ayame wanted to laugh out loud. This was just like dad. He pretended like this all of the time. "Really?" She stepped closer, ever cautious. "You don't sound too bad to me."

"Just… I could be saved… with an oran berry…" She continued on like Ayame hadn't even spoken. "Please… just one… it could… it could give me a few more moments…"

Ayame, this time, had to giggle. The spasm of her arm was just too much. She doubled over, giggling as the other sat up on the bush.

"I'll have you know I worked _hard_ on that spiel and then you go and _laugh_ at it." The teenager crossed her arms and scowled, but there wasn't any heart in it.

Ayame, still managing to laugh, reached into her bag and tossed Venam a berry. "For your attempt," she said, wiping her eyes. "I needed that laugh…"

"That's an old ass thing to say, but thanks." Purple hair took a giant bite of the blue flesh. "Name's Venam. Not that Veronica shit mom yelled out the window. _Venam._ Got me?"

"Gotcha," Ayame agreed well enough, catching eevee in her arms. Venam squinted at the sight of it.

"Something ain' right with that critter."

Ayame let out a sigh. "I know. I'm trying to figure out how to fix her. She got hurt really bad."

"Yikes." Venam wrinkled her nose like it was sympathy. "My friends might know. They're a hell of a lot smarter than me. Wanna go ask?"

"What about-" Ayame gestured to the house as Venam swung herself off the bush. The teen shrugged.

"Happens at least once a month." she went to the shattered radio and picked up the cd. Brushing it off, she slipped it carefully into a sleep left in her skirt. "I play my shit too loud, she boots me out, I bum people for food and then my paycheck rolls back in and I'm allowed to go home." She shrugged. "It's just her way of being worried about me I think."

"If that's what you call it." It might lead her to Melia so it couldn't hurt to check. "Sure! If you don't mind."

"Nah." Venam's eyes lit up with what was unmistakably mischief. "Say you're pretty small."

Ayame felt her cheeks puff out with annoyance. "I'm _twelve_." She didn't mean to sound quite so silly about it but it was true. Even if she didn't feel like it sometimes.

Venam's smirk widened. "If you say so squirt."

"It's not squirt," Ayame said before she could stop herself, eyes narrowing. "It's _Ayame._ You'd better remember it when I knock you into the dirt, _Veronica._ "

Venam's face contorted a moment. Then she smirked. "I'll believe that when I see it, squirt."

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** And Venam has arrived! It only took seven chapters! But welcome to her and welcome to the teeny start of many, many divergences. Pray for me all, please. As a note I am playing with the four move and the six pokemon party system over time. Ayame will not suddenly (nor ever) have twenty pokemon on her person. But there will be more than six, consistently. Look forward to the next chapter with more Venam, more Ren, and some Melia too, hopefully.

Active Team

Eevee (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

Isaiah (popplio) Torrent, lvl 13 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Water Gun, Disarming Voice

Stella (skitty) Wonder Skin, lvl 8 Moves: Fake Out, Tackle, Tail Whip, Sing

Trinity (fletchling) Big Pecks, lvl 11 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Quick Attack, Peck

Red (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 9 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage

Cris (voltorb) Aftermath, lvl 9, Moves: Charge, Tackle, Sonicboom, Spark

Borrowing

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	8. Chapter 8 - Something is Rotten

_Warnings: disassociating, random minor characters, brutal beating of a garbodor._

* * *

 _Chapter Eight - Something Is Rotting_

"The sewers?" Ayame wrinkled her nose. "Gross! Castelia's are clean and I hated going in them." Which she wouldn't have needed to if they weren't an escape route.

"Yeah well, Castelia's for nerds and freshies. That's why that chick with the dragon blew 'em up."

"She did not blow them up." Aya had actually been in Castelia when that mess had gotten about. "Victini caused a fire, that's all."

"And how would _you_ know?" Venam challenged with a cocky smirk.

Ayame tossed her hair back as haughtily as she could. (Deli would be proud.) "I was _there_ , of course. Towards the the middle and end. My mother… she worked in Castelia for a time." For a moment, her eyes dimmed and the worry coursed up in her throat. Was she okay? What were they doing to her? They had been looking for her _specifically?_ What for? "We ended up cutting her time there short and leaving after she stormed through Castelia." She had seen her face, barely older than Ayame herself had been, ten years old and bloodstained hands. Her face was sharp and scratched up at the time but her eyes had burned all the same as she strode into people twice her height and shoved forward. She remembered the girl, her chin barely reaching Ayame's eyes, looking down and pausing to pat her head.

"Tanis was there towards the end," she said. "That's what everyone else called her anyway. She didn't use her real name."

"Smart," Venam grunted. Then she paused. "Shite, hang on, I gotta grovel at my mum real fast. Wait here." And then Venam was gone, leaving Ayame standing there with eevee and her own thoughts.

 _That girl would hate it here,_ she thought, fiddling with Trinity's ball. This city alone was miserable to walk around, caught between rain and clouds like it would burst into tears at any moment. She'd think of having to fix this place and drown in trying.

Aya wondered if that tiny arceus had chosen that girl too. Or if that was humans, humans needing help and a savior like none other, a child because children had done it before?

Was Rina doing okay? She wondered about her too. She loved to stick her nose into things and get into trouble.

"Mind if I join you here for a second?"

Aya turned her head to see orange hair, a short black dress, a pokeball dangling from a purse. A tan woman looked down at her, bright eyed and thoughtful. "Sure," she said, leaning back a little and popping Isaiah out to splash in the drizzle. "I'm Aya," she added, because it was polite and it was wet and it'd be weird to make conversation without knowing each other's names. "Who are you?"

The woman smiled, that kindly adult one people used when they were tolerating the antics of the young and foolish. "My name is Karrina. I run the gang down below, we look after the town."

"Aren't there police for that?" The gang thing had sent a shudder down her spine, if only because all she thought of was Rockets hunting for rainbow and silver feathers and shaking down her seniors and other, horrible images in the back of her eyelids.

"There should be," Karrina said, and her soft voice aged a good ten years. "They should be, but the police have cleared out of East Gearen like the cowards they are. They prefer Grand Dream to the northwest, the safer districts you see. So it's left to the citizens and it's not always for the best, you understand."

"... I kinda do." This place was a little more like Ecruteak than she had thought it was. Except the police of Ecruteak were just the city and its ghosts, rather than likely a lot of youngsters and teenagers clinging to their strength in numbers.

"So I look after Gearen, best I can." The woman's back straightened and for a moment she looked even taller than before. "Me and mine. You know that feeling?"

She thought of the weight of a ball in her bag, buried in her treasures that no one could touch. "Yeah, a little."

"That's a shame." Karrina's expression went soft. "You shouldn't have to."

"Please don't pity me." Ayame swallowed thickly and looked away from Isaiah for a moment as he left her side and rolled about from where she had released him. "I don't need it." There were a lot of things she needed, but pity hardly was one of them.

Karrina's face flushed. "Oh, oh no no, that wasn't what I meant. Just… it's a sad world we live in where people have to."

"Oh." Ayame felt her cheeks warm in the rain. "Sorry… I just… I hear those things-"

 _Poor creature._

 _But she survived. She survived that ordeal and was blessed._

 _The blessing needs to linger_

 _May it pass onto us._

 _Perhaps she's one of us after all. We must be certain._

"Or I used to hear them, when I was little," Ayame finished because it wasn't a lie. "So I just, I come to expect it. I'm really sorry about that."

Karrina laughed. "No worries. You're a good kid."

The flush reached Ayame's ears. "I'm _twelve._ "

That only caused Karrina to laugh harder.

"Hey I'm baaacckkk!" Venam came skedaddling down the path, egg in both hands and pockets bulging. "I should have brought you with me, Aya. Mom heard I had a new friend and was all over it." She stopped to take a large gulp of air and then grinned wider at the sight of Karrina. "Hey, gang lady! How are the dusty tomes?"

Karrina rolled her eyes. "For the thousandth time, there aren't any dusty tomes. Ren just thinks I should go to the library." Ayame clapped her hands for Isaiah, rather than looking between the two of them as Karrina explained, "This girl and her friends got the runaround from some kid. They think there's a super secret library underneath the city. And trust me, if there is, it's long gone by now. Probably drowned or something." She waved a hand. "Anyway, I wouldn't even know where to start looking."

"She gets asked that a lot," Venam said. She was smirking, her brown eyes sparkling with mischief.

Aya nodded absently. Her eyes were on the green egg in Venam's arms. She poked one of the spots. "Bulbasaur egg?"

Venam's chest puffed out. "Yeah, got 'em last month. I can't carry them around much in this place. Rare little fella here."

Aya nodded and gave it a gentle stroke with her fingers. "We aren't allowed to breed them in Johto."

Venam grinned at her. "C'mon let's go a'fore my friends run off. Nice seein' you Kari~"

Karinna's face took on a long suffering look for the briefest of instants before she let them go. They were off to the sewers. Isaiah borking happily the whole way.

"I hope he doesn't try to swim down there," Venam said. "it's still not all fixed from when we switched to the West Gearen folks pulling the load. The water's better for the skrelp than the people."

Ayame perked. She'd never seen a _skrelp_ up close before. They evolved into poisonous dragons that laid waste to the entirety of an old Kalos settlement that had become Vaniville, as far away from the water as they could safely dare. She had seen her mother nearly lose to a dragalge until her sylveon had psyshocked it so badly blood had started to come out of its ears after it knocked out four of her pokemon in a row.

"Aren't those dangerous?" she asked.

Venam shrugged. "Not to me, I train poison types. And these waters aren't as dangerous as the ones leading out of the city. The sewers in the west have a lot of work to do to stop that."

"Can't your pokemon purify the water?"

Venam shook her head. "That's a permit I don't got. Wish I did. Make some money thataway!" She squinted at the figure approaching what Ayame hoped was the sewer entrance. "Hoi! Ren, did you forget where you were going?"

 _Oh no._ Ayame resisted the urge to cringe behind Venam and stay there. Ren gave her such a bad vibe. She couldn't have to deal with him all the way in the sewers, would she?"

As they got closer, the dread in her stomach made her realize, god, she would. And she had to not punch him into the polluted water. Ayame didn't even know why she didn't like him. He grinned at Venam easily enough and nodded at her. Ayame swallowed and waved back.

 _He's just another kid, like me,_ she told herself, and trailed after them down stairs. The smell of grime and rancid water caused Aya to cough and consider heaving up her breakfast.

"You get used to it," Ren offered as Venam led the way, snatching looks at passerby youngsters and dragging others away from their yanking fishing lines (do you want a qwilfish in your brain? do ya?). Aya tried not to gag.

"I hope not," she mumbled.

He laughed and watched two of the abandoned youngsters turn on them, pokeballs in hand and murder in their eyes. "Wanna help get through here?"

Aya almost said no. But then she realized if she didn't help him, they would turn to heckle her. "Sounds good," she said after a moment. "If you let me catch a few things."

"You're one of those trainers who obsessively catches anything in front of you, aren't you?" he said with a beaming smile. Like it was a fond little tactic. And it was. Beginners did it all the time, because they often thought they could complete the impossible pokedex and didn't think about evolutions and trades.

Ayame controlled her mouth, much as she wanted to sink her teeth into his face and _rip._ That was not a thing normal people did, definitely not. "I'm going against a poison gym soon," she said with a small smile instead. "On its home turf. I'm not taking any chances."

"If you say so," he said with a playful little smile. Ayame made her fingers uncurl and followed him into a fight.

And the next. Why did these people have damn _pichu_? She was so jealous. You couldn't get wild pichu in Johto anymore, or much of anywhere but that random guy's backyard in Sinnoh and Melemele Island in Alola. They'd been hunted onto the endangered species list following the Volt Tackle craze. And Alola somehow had a _psychic_ raichu. It made her entire body fizzle with excitement. They'd be so much fun to have on the team they were so fluffy and cute! Of course, if she managed to have one, she would do whatever it took to have a happy, surfing 'chu.

Still. She closed a ball around a gulpin and a woobat and they clicked in at once, a part of her growing team. The murkrow at Ren's shoulder cawed at her in distaste. Eevee stared at it in return, as if fully planning to bite off one of its wings. She stroked their fur.

"Cocorin's a bit of a jerk," Ren supplied, sending him off. "But he's great to stop stallers in their tracks.

"Where did you get one?" Ayame asked before she could stop herself.

Ren grinned. "My hometown had them all over the rafters. Someone I knew gave them to me because they couldn't control the insufferable bastard. They could smell the bullshit excuses. There are also some hanging around here sometimes, looking for new trainer lunch leftovers and their shiny change. Intelligent birds, these."

"They tend to flock to Ecruteak every festival," Ayame said with a smirk. "Convenient."

Cocorin chortled and gave another caw, taking off to peck a trubbish between the eyes.

Ayame sent out Trinity again, watching her dive bomb a poor rattata in the face. She almost wished she had found a pikipek. Those could learn rock smash.

The lights flickered overhead, out and then on again.

"Bite!" Shouted a little boy. His rattata leaped a good distance and then Trinity crossed the rest of it, knocking the rat nearly right into the water.

"Again!" Aya called and the fletchling obeyed, giving the other pokemon a good smack. A gulpin or something. Those things were terrifying. She'd heard of them eating the frame of houses before.

"God they're all trying to make a giant fuss today," Ren grunted, swapping out for his frogadier. Bonnie lunged and smacked the gulpin with a water pulse. It did not try to roll up again. Aya dropped her portion of the pocket change into her bag. "What did Venam do when I wasn't looking?"

Ayame didn't answer, but followed along all the same as they reached one of what looked like many white doors. She threw up in her mouth a little and forced it back down, the acrid pain bubbling on the back of it.

She did not need to keep looking at white doors thanks.

"Great," she heard as if through a tunnel. "The generator must have freaked out. Come on, we need to go reset it." Aya followed, pulling herself from the murk of screaming voices and pain twitching all up and down her arms and legs. She took a deeper breath than she had really needed to and her vision cleared up slowly. She could still see enough to swap out pokemon on the sparking computer and hurry after Ren through a few more volleys of trainers. She didn't remember giving commands for a good five minutes until Isaiah's frantic barks shot everything into crystal clarity.

"Disarming Voice," she called and that was when Isaiah's barks turned into screams.

Ren winced. "Did you _have_ to do that in an enclosed space?"

 _Yes._ "Sorry," she said, shaking her head. "It worked at least."

"That it did," Ren agreed, watching a plusle and minun skitter away like their ears had been shattered. "thought I'd lost you for a second there."

"I'm fine," she told him, and her voice came out a little sharper than it was supposed to.

Ren shifted back a little and she didn't bother to feel sorry about it. Instead she slumped against the wall and watched him examine the three little generators. Well, no, they dwarfed her, but that didn't say much. She sprayed Isaiah with potion and gently rubbed his head.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled to the otter. "I just got lost in my head." He nosed her palm, and to her it felt like it didn't matter. Ayame picked him up and held him as tightly as she dared. He barked quietly, but did not leave her grip.

Then of course, once her heartbeat was back to a reasonable rate, someone screamed so loud they heard it a few hallways down. Ren bolted, yelling someone's name in panic. Memia? Melia? It was probably Melia, no one stopped talking about her now. Ayame returned Isaiah, who let out a grumbling sound, and pulled out her woobat.

"Ready Cheshire?"

Her bat squeaked. He wasn't a zubat but he was plenty strong for her needs right now which was… a psychic type that could fly. She'd heard Amanda say something about how the gym leaders had fields that would make their lives easier… mostly. She did not want to fight a poison type with too many land creatures.

She hurried out of the room and past all the defeated trainers until a smell worse than the sewer already was smacked her so hard she staggered in place. She did throw up in the water and it _ached_. "What the hell…" she wheezed. Cheshire flapped beside her, as if trying to clear the air. With his nose, it was probably worse on him. "Let's get this over with," she managed to say, wiping her mouth with her wrist, and following the stench. "Gust," she shouted and Cheshite whipped a small wind into the doorway. It was much easier to look at now that it was open. There was a loud sound quite like a glurk that went muffled as she ran in.

The first thing she saw made her regret entering the room.

There was a large, sparkling garbodor, and it was leading a blond girl (who was also taller than her, joy) close to the greenish water. She clutched a small egg creature to her chest. Said togepi looked distinctly green.

"Sic'em!" Ayame called and Cheshire's nose glowed. Instead of psychic waves, however, out burst a large heart from his nose, smacking the giant pile of garbage right in the face. It gurgled, turning in slow lurches to face her. Acid spat out and struck Cheshire hard enough to make him drop and flap frantically up again.

Ayame squared her shoulders. "Again!"

Cheshire fired and it stumbled back, well, much as it could stumble without feet.

"Water Pulse!" Ayame heard from her left, the static in her ear thankfully not cracking too much. "Hurry, Bonnie!"

"I got one of 'em," Venam crowed from the side. "C'mon Melia, this'a'way!"

"R-Right…"

Ayame didnt' bother to see if she had moved. "Disorient it! Confusion!"

The room _wavered_ for a moment, the waves spreading about and making everyone sway. Aya shut her eyes. "Charge up!" she ordered quickly. She was going to have to find a way to not use her voice to fight. She had practiced, sure, but that was in training where they knew already.

It would do for now, she supposed. Woobat's nose was glowing a steady pink, the bulk of the garbodor slowly moving towards it. Acid spat from its mouth. Cheshire dodged, body glowing pink now and spiraled up and up.

The acid flew towards her this time and Aya rolled, hearing the not comforting hiss of wall meeting poison. "Fire!"

The heart exploded on contact and the garbodor skid backwards and slammed into the wall. It slumped, acidic drool dripping onto the floor and causing it to begin to sizzle.

"Holy crap," Venam managed to say, coming to Ayame's side. "I gotta fight you when you can do that?"

Ayame grinned. "Some squirt I am, huh?"

Venam shoved her hat down into her head in reply.

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ Hey all! Another chapter! I warn, these next few chapters are seriously battle heavy and I tried my best to make them more interesting than turn based tackle fights. Or at least the third one will be. Also I do not apologize for these fast levels and the like. This is how the game went for me without being absurd. Aka fighting the Litleo and boosting my popplio all the way to brionne. Whoops. Could not include that.

Active Team

Eevee (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

Isaiah (popplio) Torrent, lvl 15 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

Cheshire (woobat) Unaware, lvl 15 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

Trinity (fletchling) Big Pecks, lvl 14 Moves: Tackle, Growl, Quick Attack, Peck

Red (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 13 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

Cris (voltorb) Aftermath, lvl 13, Moves: Charge, Rollout, Sonicboom, Spark

Borrowing

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	9. Chapter 9 - Many, Many Little Wars

_Warning for threats and violence and abnormal children._

* * *

 _Chapter Nine - Many, Many Little Wars_

"Not bad." Ren moved to her left, offering her two cans of soda. She opened one and tipped it for Cheshire, who squealed at the taste. "Guess the real beginner's luck was you catching the crazy woobat huh?"

"More like that garbodor evolved too soon." Ayame flipped out her pokedex and scanned it, now that the two pokemon didn't seem inclined to move. "They don't evolve until level thirty-six, or at least thirty months old, unless they are made by force." She scanned the room. "There are lots of trubbish in this place. It could have happened naturally."

"It, uh… probably didn't." Aya watched Melia step forward and tip a potion on the dizzy garbodor's mouth. As it awoke she looked at it andwaggled a finger."Now, no more eating wires, all right? We need those and you need to not get tossed around like a rag doll."

Cheshire giggled, squeaking by Aya's ear. The garbodor rumbled and then, with a hefty gurgle, leaped over their heads and to the other side of the room, where the other trubbish lingered. They disappeared through the open doorway and out of sight.

Cheshire flapped a bit in place, inching forward. "No," Aya said firmly, patting the pokemon down. "No chasing. You humiliated them enough."

Cheshire squeaked in dismay but perked up again at the touch of Aya's hand on the top of its round body. "How's your togepi?" she asked, looking at Melia once more. She was dressed like a normal girl, white shirt, black shorts. She was a normal looking blond girl, with soft features and welcome eyes. The extra cherry on top was the way that she looked healthy, a color to her cheeks that just wasn't present in most of the people she had known.

 _What was I expecting?_ Of course she was a nice-looking girl. That was always the scapegoat, a person too good for the earth, someone who did not deserve the suffering heaped upon them, but rose above it and was better than the rest. And yet they were also, supposedly, entirely normal. _Better her than you,_ a voice whispered in her head.

 _Hush, Tama-chan._

He went blissfully silent as the girl spoke. She was also older and taller and likely much more prepared as a trainer. "Hapi's all right… I guess our extrasensory wasn't strong enough against it."

"Togetic are better at it," Aya mumbled, leaning down to check on the little egg herself. It squeaked at her in greeting and met a tiny smile. "Babies can only do so much with a psychic attack like that. You're lucky she wasn't hurt too badly. Baby fairy, hmmm?"

She got another pleased squeak and the egg baby rolled out to the ground. Melia went to snatch them up. "Oh no-" she started, only to see the togepi bump into a soft nose. Cheshire squeaked at her. Hapi waved her stubby arms in reply.

Aya smiled at them both. "Lookit, they're friends."

Melia smiled back at her. There was a sparkle in her eyes that Ayame did not see, focusing on the small creatures as she was. "They are!"

Ayame let them play, examining eevee once more. Said eevee had settled on her haunches, watching the poison pokemon escape. And now she just laid there on the ground. Aya reached over and picked her up into her arms. Eevee squirmed a little, the glaze of purple in her eyes kicking up somewhat. She settled at Aya's firm grip though.

"So, what did you all mean by "It probably didn't." Ayame turned to face the three of them. And all of them looked away suspiciously quickly. She could not be that intimidating right now. "You all have weird faces on…" She looked at Venam, who she actually knew here.

But it was Ren who spoke up. "We… might have left some garbage bags here for a few days just to see what would happen."

"We totally didn't expect it to!" Melia continued, shifting her feet. "That only happens for trubbish! I- We were given permission-"

"Whoever gave you permission needs to be _shot,_ " Ayame burst out before she could stop herself. "Because you clearly weren't supervised correctly and you caused power outages and it could have spread! People could have been seriously hurt. There was no enclosed environme-"

"Don't you threaten my father!"

Melia's face loomed close to her own, her having crossed the little distance they actually had apart. She reached out and grabbed at Aya's shoulders. "Don't you insult him, he's worked hard this whole time and he didn't know-"

"And he could have gotten you killed," Aya shot back without any hesitation. "You could have gotten a lot of people killed!"

"But we didn't!" Melia retorted. She made to move that little instant closer. Then Aya felt eevee leap from her arms, forehead colliding with Melia's skull and sending her backwards. The little pokemon landed on all-fours, snarling loudly. Every single fur was on end. If that creepy guy with the mohawk had been a problem before with eevee, this was on another level. The pokemon continued to bark and snarl at Melia, edging closer and even to Aya, fur seeming to turn _red_ for an instant.

Melia herself was making to get up, Venam having dove to caught her. _Gay,_ Aya's brain supplied unhelpfully as she rushed over to her quivering mass of fur.

"Eevee!" she scolded. "Now what did you do that for? She wasn't going to bring me any harm. Was she too close to you? That's no excuse you know." She continued to talk, voice firm and soothing. Slowly, her eevee's fur began to loosen up, falling flat at the sound of her voice. until her body language was placid once more. Then Ayame picked her up.

"Just because we got a little heated... " She turned to Melia. "Are you all right? I'm sorry, I just got this one. She's more aggressive than I'm used to."

"I don't know," Ren managed to say, having been cautiously moving towards them. "You're pretty aggressive yourself. _Everyone_ tends to quail when Melia puffs up like that."

"I do not puff up!" Melia's voice sounded nasal. She had probably gotten eevee to the nose after all. "Though… I did get worked up a bit…"

"So did I," Aya admitted, face flushing the color of her hair. "I'm sorry… I was just raised in a League town, so…"

"Our league is too young to have much of a standard yet," Venam said. Her own hackles were slowly relaxing and she was heading back to her egg. "But no wonder you lost it just now, man. I bet you heard every reg until your ears bled." She shuddered. "WE screwed the poochyena."

"At least we found it now. We'll have to call the electricians." Ren, realizing no one looked ready to kill each other, piped up. "Though we gotta call Karrina first. She needs to know people are running about in her city."

Venam wrinkled her nose. "Priss."

Ren and Melia both laughed. "You're one to talk."

"I am not!"

* * *

The rain hadn't abated by the time they left the abandoned sewers. Ayame made a face. "Great, more wet."

"Well, we know who won't be a water pokemon master," Ren mused with a grin. Aya ducked from his hand and raced into the rain, just to prove them wrong. She hid her winces as wiping the deluge from her face.

"Why don't we go wait out the storm at the hotel?" Melia suggested. "It's up ahead and the owner usually doesn't mind if we use the battlefield."

"Doesn't mind you you mean," Venam grumbled. "I've seen Ren chased out of there more times than me."

"He's a cheap old dudder," Ren said with a wry grin. "I'll go with you. I was going to the library but my phone says they can't open the doors yet. I'll bug Karrina and meet you down there."

"See you!" both girls called. Aya did not, focusing on rebalancing eevee in her hood. The pokemon was perfectly placid now, if a little more responsive to Aya's touch. She was so quick and careful to anything Aya did. _Why was she with mom?_

It wasn't the first time she had thought that, or the last, and she still hadn't seen Amanda since bringing the flash drive to her. It was getting… uncomfortable.

She shook that thought away. "I have to meet with someone for a match out that way, I think. You wanna come watch?"

"Not much else for me to do," Venam said with a grin. "Mom's still pissed." She had the egg back in her arms again. Aya did not want to know where it had been before. "So I'm technically homeless."

"You are not, don't say that." Melia looked away as she spoke. "I'd like to see you battle something that wasn't a large moving garbage pile, sure. You can't fight Venam yet, anyway."

"I'm not sure I want to let her, way she shattered that thing."

Aya only grinned. "Scaredy-cat!"

"What'd you say, squirt?" Egg or no egg, Venam tore after her into the rain, even as the girl laughed out loud. Melia, smiling, hurried after them. But because she was so far away, she did not see what Venam saw.

Venam saw the many water droplets fizzling on Ayame's bare arms, kicking up steam. And she saw the girl's face pinched in pain through a smile made of gritted teeth.

Venam, to her own surprise, said nothing, but held her egg tighter.

* * *

A young woman with silver hair met the four of them (Ren had caught up with them already.) at the entrance to the battlefield. Her grey eyes looked at them all and went wide. "Oh," she began. "I, uh, thought only one person could accept a Help Request at a time. Are you all here to-"

"No, no," Melia said quickly. "Aya here accepted it. We're just waiting out the rain until the main power line comes back on."

"Cause god forbid everywhere else can afford a generator." Venam yelped as Ren jabbed her in the ribs. "What, he's a prick and I have no shame in telling him?"

"You're just mad he lets Saki stay within miles of your house."

"... She ran over the squirt."

"Into," Aya corrected as she slowly moved past them to her opponent. "I'm Aya. Nice to meet you."

Immediately, the older woman's face seemed to ease up. "Nice to meet you too! I'm Novae. I'm wandering Aevium, looking to test my skills. Dime a dozen of me, huh?"

Aya cracked a grin. "Kinda!"

Novae led the way across the pristine battlefield. It was made of tough, gleaming tile. Would it stand up to a real battle? Aya examined it. Would it be able to handle clashing _titans,_ strong enough to melt steel and bury fully grown monsters? She was too soon to wonder now, but… she couldn't help but consider that. If they could… if it could...wow.

By the time she took her place, she saw the other three on a small set of bleachers, Melia in the middle of her friends. Envy stabbed her eyes and gut and she looked away, turning back to Novae. The woman looked at her with a sad smile.

"We've got an audience," she said, raising a ball. "Shall we show them the song of the everyday?"

Aya stared a moment. Then she smiled. "Let's battle!"

And her blood started to thud in her heart as the first ball grew in her opponent's hand. "Trumbeak, stand by!" The ball flew high and released something like an oversized woodpecker, black wings pumping for all of their worth as he took to the air.

"May the stars shine upon you today," called her opponent, smiling wide. Aya took pause.

What was the best way to handle this? Type advantage in these circumstances would say rocks,electricity or ice, and there was no way she'd request a battle with a trumbeak that was too high on levels. She bit her lip. What was that thing about the pikipek? She couldn't remember. It had something to do with Rock Smash.

Oh well. She had no rocks anyway. So. "Cris, let's go!"

Her voltorb burst out and immediately started to roll. The smooth tile made it easy for the little ball to start rolling and keep rolling. It was difficult for them to just stop. But he managed it, opening his eyes to stare up at the hovering bird.

"Yikes." Ren winced. "All voltorbs have are their speed. That thing's gonna get crushed."

"You sure about that?" Venam asked. Her eyes were on Aya. "You saw her woobat heart stamp a garbodor."

"Go!" Aya ordered. The voltorb started to roll as trumbeak opened its beak and proceeded to bellow, the sound echoing across the room. Voltorb shuddered as it moved but kept right on rolling, unable or unwilling to stop. As it reached under trumbeak's shadow, Cris exploded with electricity. Trumbeak squawked and flew away to another part of the battlefield. Said bird was glaring, wings outstretched, even as Cris rolled on across the field.

"Pluck!" Novae called. "Throw off its movements!"

"Again!" Aya shot back.

Trumbeak dove and jabbed his beak into the rolling ball. Cris exploded again but its momentum stopped, spinning about in one spot as trumbeak darted away with singed wings.

"Don't think you can get away with a rollout _that_ easily!" Novae was beaming regardless.

Aya grinned back. "Sonic Boom!"

White waves burst out as Cris started to spin, the air shaking all over from the force of it in the small room. Novae made to put her hands over her ears. Aya merely dialed down her hearing aids. She did not look away.

"Stop that sound!"

Trumbeak winced, one wing clipped, but dove on command, pecking his beak into the top of the spinning ball. He failed to find purchase, but the voltorb did slow down. He raised one talon and smashed it down into Cris' head. The spinning almost failed entirely. Trumbeak took off, making to glide away.

"Spark!"

The bird _screamed_ and the room was filled with the distinct smell of something burning. It turned and jabbed his beak close to Cris' open eye.

The voltorb actually exploded this time, taking trumbeak with it in a cloud of smoke. When said cloud faded, both pokemon weren't moving, out cold.

Neither trainer paused. Both murmured a thank you to their partners and their next pokemon were unleashed. Out came a pile of moving sand facing a wild looking fomantis.

"Ooh!" Novae smirked a little as she spoke. "Great minds think alike a little it seems."

"Leafage!" Aya called.

"Sand Tomb!"

 _Oh screw that move._ Red was slow, and now he'd be blind? Ugghghh.

A part of Sandygast's body rose up in a cloud to grab the small leaves Red had already thrown. Before Aya could give an order, Red threw two sharp leaves through the cloud that smacked into -and cut- the pile of sand in two. It burbled its annoyance, the shovel in its head drooping slightly. Red let out a clicking noise of distaste, the cloud of sand whipping into a tornado and slashing little cuts into the plant's skin. He winced and raised both arms.

"Wait there!" Aya's voice caught him, though muffled by the rapidly growing sand. The tornado had dug into the earth a little, breaking the tile and spinning it about. "Protect your eyes!"

Red obeyed. This person had beaten him with brute force. Had reminded him of his place. For now, he would hear. For now.

"Astonish!"

The sand sank, burbling as it slinked towards its tornado. Only the shovel and its black eyes were visible. Sandygast disappeared into the blurry tornado, spinning around and around and groaning in echoes around Red's body.

Certain of itself, the ghost lunged from the side. Red lashed out. It was wild, uncoordinated. but it hit. Sandygast burbled and whined. Red opened his eyes and slashed right down its face.

Aya watched the tornado explode into dust, covering her eyes towards the end. Red wobbled a little where he stood, but he righted himself as the sand grumbled, reforming a short distance away and slumping in a weak pile. Its shovel fell over and clattered to the ground.

Novae returned him with a small sigh. "You worked hard."

"Uh." Ren uttered.

"Yikes," Melia managed to say. "Good luck Venam."

Venam nodded mutely, not looking away at all. Her fingers trailed over the green eggshell. It trembled.

"Fury Cutter!"

The three of them turned back to see fomantis against fomantis for the briefest of moments, one cut making way for another as Red was replaced with an oversized fletchling. Trinity squawked in pain as the next blade hit right in the gut, feathers sliced clean off.

"Sorry, Trinity!" The fletchling squawked and exploded with smoke from its beak. She shrieked as she spread her wings wide.

"What the fresh hell?" Ren managed to say as beak met leaf for a second time, followed by talon and leaf. "She's been here for what? A week? At best?"

"Dude this was a _few hours_ ," Venam corrected. "You told us you _just fought her_ this morning _._ "

"A _few hours_?" Melia looked back at the two snipping little creatures, tuning out Novae and Aya cheering at their corners. "There's no way. That fletchling looks like it's been training for at least two weeks. What _happened_ in the sewers, Ren?"

Ren shook his head. "We fought a lot of wilds and a lot of trainers. She caught a good few pokemon. I had to stop her from trying to dive and catch a skrelp."

"A _skrelp?_ " Venam shuddered. " _I_ don't even wanna train one of those. And she'd have lost her damn hands trying to catch it."

Fomantis fell -they weren't nearly as defensive as their evolutionary forms- and out came a rectangular bug, which proceeded to spark, loud enough that Melia had to look at it. Trinity shrieked and hit the ground. Electricity twitched on her wings. The charjabug inched closer, sparking. It was, however, very slow and thus was not prepared for a burst of small embers to smack it and ignite all over the coarse skin. Trinity rolled over and rose into the air, flapping hard against the sparks of electricity running over her body. She squawked and charged forward, beginning to glow a sheer white.

"Oh my!" Novae raised her hand. "Stop it, charjabug!"

Embers burst from the white light, peppering charjabug in the face with fireballs before flying towards the ceiling and out of reach. The glow faded in a singular flash, leaving the awkward red and grey bird to spiral down and dive hard on charjabug, jabbing her beak into his middle. The bug wiggled and screeched in pain, sparking so brightly the room went blind.

Both trainers returned their pokemon. "Four to two," Novae said with a small smile. "Not bad for my first trainer battle!"

"This is your _first battle?"_ Aya looked up from cradling Trinity's ball. "You're awesome!" There was a childish bend to her voice, higher and squeaking a little.

"You're not so bad yourself," Novae said with a giggle, releasing a brown puppy for examination.

Aya resisted the urge to gush. That was adorable. That pokemon was so adorable. She… was such a sap. She released Red again-

And immediately had to swap him out because a single rock throw had knocked him clear across the battlefield.

Isaiah let out a delighted bark as he landed on the crumbled tile. His fur was a steady sea blue now, eyelashes longer, and frills of white shifting from his flippers.

Novae beamed. "A girl after my own heart."

Aya grinned. She was not nearly as friendly as Novae with that look. "Aqua Jet!"

Rather like an echo, this time the pup is the one smacked into the wall. Unlike Aya's fomantis however, the pup got up on wobbling legs and howls. Then it leaped, jaws open wide to bite down. Isaiah met it with another burst of speed and rapid water.

The rockruff's laws sank into Isaiah's neck anyway before being yanked off by a powerful water gun that sent the pup to the floor in a sprawl of limbs and dizzy eyes. He shook his head, barked and raced forward one more time.

The last Aqua Jet knocked him to the ground and he did not move. Isaiah let out a triumphant bark, yipping and clapping his flippers together. He too started to shine, body lengthening and the pokemon inside thinning. The pokemon spun about on the ground, barking and squeaking with joy.

"... shit," Venam breathed.

"How the _hell."_

Two evolutions. In under twelve hours. How was this _possible?_

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ Fun thing I figured out. Since in-game time doesn't equal playing time, it's very likely you go through the entire Goldenwood Forest-Venam's badge (if not Route 2) in the span of an in-game day. Aka, your MC gets a badge in likely twelve hours. It puts your character in a whole new terrifying perspective.

In game, by this point, I had a swoobat. But I had also fought Venam by then. So.

Anyway, see you next time!

 _Active Team_

Eevee (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

Isaiah (brionne) Torrent, lvl 17 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

Cheshire (woobat) Unaware, lvl 16 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

Trinity (fletchling) Big Pecks, lvl 16 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

Red (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 15 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

Cris (voltorb) Aftermath, lvl 14, Moves: Charge, Rollout, Sonicboom, Spark

Borrowing

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	10. Chapter 10 - Uncommon

_Warning for cursing, memory loss, godly interference, mention of child death and revival._

* * *

 _Chapter Ten - Uncommon_

Jan was not having a good day.

Not that he ever had them these days. Running a league basically on his own was not exactly a fun time had by all. His sister goofed off on the best of days, but she did her job when she needed to. The bare minimum. Unfortunately, she tended to be indiscriminate on who she let in so he often got complaints about something or other, like they were too weak or too strong or they did not follow the sensible circuit or a whole host of things and he eventually ran out of ways to tell his remaining league members to frankly _shut it_ and try finding their own candidates if it bothered them so much.

So he was rather used to Veronica - Venam, it was on her application he would call her that so long as she met quota and stopped pissing in people's metaphorical corn flakes - coming up to him and complaining hotly at the top of her lungs the second the door was closed. He was not, however, used to her and her posse of friends coming up to him politely, shutting his door and waiting for him to finish with the latest batch of paperwork.

Except when he looked up, there wasn't belligerence or irritation or anything. There was outright _fear_ on their faces that had kept them silent thus far. Jan knew from his escapades in teenage bullshit that an afraid teenager was never a good sign.

"Afternoon," he said cautiously. "What can I do for you three today? Your dad said you'd be gone, Melia." Her voice was completely serene with a hint of exasperation, as they knew him to be because it was familiar enough.

All three of them shared a look. "The train system's not back online yet," Melia finally said, rubbing the togepi in her arms. "So we went to watch one of the new trainers battle."

"And?" Were they particularly bad? It would be a while before another ferry came back for them, they didn't often come to Aevium. So the kids would have to get good or find a different career. That was on them. Karrina couldn't pick up every stray dumbass who pissed off a Charmander. "Is this the buizel kid again?"

"We haven't seen him in weeks, but that buizel is gone," Venam said. Jan watched her mouth twitch briefly into a sneer. "Someone must have picked the greenie up."

Arceus, he hoped so. "So if it's not that one who was it?"

"Who is Ayame?" Ren gripped Venam's arm and she twisted away like a pretzel. The egg in her arms wobbled again. "Pink hair, red eyes, white clothes?"

Two of those traits meant something and they were a something that sent bile up his throat. "Ah," he said, once he felt safe to talk. "That one."

Sometimes, Amanda did show him files of people she was planning to scout. Maybe they had been champions in other regions (could they stop sending people from Vesryn they were all jerks) or criminals trying to do their time or had been rejected from other leagues and so on. They needed his stamp of approval. It was rather inevitable.

"I don't like the way you said that," Ren finally said.

Jan refused, utterly, to change his expression. "You wouldn't. But I do happen to know of that one. What about her?"

"She evolved two pokemon today," Melia said, words rushing out like a waterfall. "And she just got her starter this morning."

Jan blinked once. "They need to stop feeding kids in Johto whatever it is they feed them." He hoped his voice was bland enough, he hoped his voice was not as remotely fucked up as their faces were.

"Jan, what the hell?" Venam stomped up. "Most of the time, I'm down for a wisecrack but this ain't the time. The kid's _twelve_. Her team is able to get my badge, in not even a day! That's not normal! That's not kids! Kids don't know type matchups from their ass and just catch anything and throw it at people hoping it kills something. Kids throw pikachu at onix or some shit and get lucky! They don't have a woobat crush a garbodor into a wall!"

"Experiment didn't work out as planned, huh?" Jan kept his voice dry. "Your dad's in deep shit for that one, Melia, just so you know."

Melia flushed, and managed the tiniest of scowls, which was really hilarious. She couldn't mouth off at him quite yet, she wasn't being paid, and she knew it.

Ren managed to pull Venam back into a chair. "Sir, you know about this. You know what Venam is saying-"

"And it's none of your damn business." Jan watched their eyes, watched the- there we go with that belligerent narrow and rebellious mouth twitch damn he knew it well. "You're right," he agreed. "I do know. You do not and you don't need to. Knowing ya'll, you'll put it on tape and blab about it for everyone to hear. She's a kid. She probably knows something's up already and you just met her. You don't need to know anything. You just want to satisfy your curiosity. That's not my job. My job is to keep this incomplete hellscape afloat."

His phone beeped and he picked it up. "Yeah? Good. Thanks. … Yeah. Sure. It'll be fixed and not happen again. Yep." Jan hung up. "Goldenwood Forest train is running. Get out."

"But-" Melia began.

"Out," Jan repeated, looking down at the next sheaf of papers to read. "If she hasn't mentioned it, maybe she has a good reason. Or maybe you need to fight her to find the reason. Who knows? Amanda found her, I approved her participation in this league. That's the end of it."

Except it wasn't and they knew it wasn't.

They still left of course. Jan watched them go under his grant assignment, his eyes narrowed into slits. Then when the door was shut and their shadows faded away, he slumped back. "You're welcome."

"Thank you." The nasally voice replied from on a bookshelf. "Not bad for another pile of molecules I'm fond of."

"Such a high compliment." Jan scratched away at another form. "You're sure it's her. Not Melia."

"Absolutely. Even the big guy above me as the big guy is sure." Arceus stretched his small form and settled once more on the wood. "Melia is _something_ , that magnetism doesn't happen to just anyone or for anyone. But I know it's this one. Big Me is bound and determined to be _coy_ about it, but they aren't as coy as they were about you."

"I'd prefer to be the big coy secret if that's all right." Jan turned the music back up from his phone. "I'll take your word that it's her. She won't thank you for it."

"If I had my way she wouldn't be either. Melia's not gritty enough though, not hard enough or cruel enough. Melia cannot be."

"You think Melia can't be pushed or somethin'?"

Arceus laughed. "Oh she's pushable all right. One good shove and she's in pieces on the floor. Rather be able to pick up something without dropping more of them in the process or cutting your own fingers."

Venam leaned away from the doorway, eyebrows furrowed. Then her brown eyes glinted with delight.

She hurried to catch up with her friends.

* * *

"I'm going to meet him now, thank you!" The teenager's voice sounded positively jubilant. "Are you a matchmaker or something kid?"

Aya tilted her head. "If I was, my cousin would be married by now!"

Not that Delila wasn't worth dating. She was just kinda harsh to people she didn't like. Which was most people. They usually deserved it, as far as Aya was concerned.

The young man laughed. "Fair enough! Thanks for passing this onto me." He disappeared down the path, headed down towards the lab and then the pier by Ayame's guess. She hummed a little, watched the cloudy sky for more rain. When the clouds didn't seem ready to pour, she began to head down the path again. The blisters of pain had already healed, they tended to smooth over very quickly, but it would be weird if she had to cover her arms now when she hadn't before.

Entering a shop with a large lilligant sign plastered over it, Ayame was immediately hit in the face with a tiny ball of yellow fluff. She picked the sparking creature off of her cheek. "Hello Pich," she mumbled and the pichu chirped and cooed, nuzzling into her left cheek. Thankfully he did it without sparking this time.

"He's a good customer," said the woman, giggling at the disgruntled crinkle of her lilligant's eyes. "But he gets bored very easily. It'll probably help to keep him out of the pokeball. Pichu aren't good combat pokemon, most of the time. But he seems very attached to you, so you'll be able to reign him in at the very least."

Pich chirped loudly, before going to nuzzle his way into the rest of the space in Ayame's hood. There was a small grunt of sound, which was more than eevee had made before. (At least she was recovering, that was a good sign.) But while her hood was drooping a little more, the sweater showed no hint of ripping apart. It was a Sinnoh sweater. They wouldn't break easily.

Ayame still couldn't believe that she had gotten a _pichu_.

"Thank you ma'am!"

And it liked her!

"Actually." Ayame paused as she placed her hand on the door. "Could you take something off of our hands for me?"

Five minutes later, Ayame was doing her best to cram a candy making kit into her bag, courtesy of the mother, who claimed she was much too busy to use it these days. Aya wasn't sure how much she believed that but she wouldn't argue with an eventual source of income. When she was able to stop and sit down, she would have to learn how to use it.

Whenever that would be.

Unfortunately, it was raining by the time she managed to get her bag to rights and it took a good few towels to get the rest of her at the very least not dripping. She shook her head until her hair stood on end in the warmth of the laboratory lobby.

Someone snickered. "You're just a cat in human form aren't you?"

Venam grinned into her wide eyes and Aya did her best to swallow her heart while it was still beating.

"Pretty much," she said with a weak smile of her own. "I had some trouble in a storm once."

"Cute." Venam adjusted her grip on the egg, which was still wobbling quite casually. "So, listen, can you do me a favor?"

"A favor?" Ayame's shoulders never liked the sound of favors Pich squeaked and scrambled up onto one of her shoulders to squint.

"Yeah!" Venam jerked her thumb behind her where Melia and Ren were swapping cards and scribbling on scraps of paper. "Do me a favor and go with Melia through the forest. She's lucky there's a straightforward path or she'd be lost within five minutes. I don't want her falling face first into the lake."

Neither did Ayame. That meant she'd have to rescue her, which meant she'd have to swim and just thinking of that made her stomach _lurch_. "I gotcha," she said after a moment. Why did she want that all of a sudden? What was Venam after? "So you just want me to keep an eye on things then?"

"Yeah." Venam sighed. "She's a little nervous about… stuff. Maybe you can keep her from crashing into a wall. I've gotta stay here and run the gym and get ready for your challenge. Cause you _might_ push me a little."

"Might?" Aya echoed.

"Might," Venam agreed, grinning. "Now go on, before it gets dark. Can you imagine her stumbling around in the dark?"

"I'm not going to get to stumble about _anywhere._ " Melia joined them, looking disgruntled. "Dad wants me to wait until tomorrow. Something just came in. He wants me to test it while I'm out there."

"I'll still go," Aya volunteered before Venam could sputter. The purple girl sagged in relief. "If Venam battles me tonight," she finished.

Venam did sputter this time. Aya fixed her with as firm a look as she could muster to hide the way her arms and legs trembled. This was insane, wild, stupid, reckless. But she did not have time to sit around here. If she wasn't going to be able to bring up this stupid destiny thing to Melia in private any time soon or-or at all, she was going to stay away from her room as long as she could to avoid the supposedly godly power taking residence in her bedroom who wanted to wheedle her into it, whatever it was. Into becoming a godly messenger or some such crap.

She'd had enough of that, utterly enough. She was not a savior or a helping hand or any of those complimentary things.

She was a monster in human skin and the human skin was all that people needed to see.

Aya had had no idea what the other three had whispered to each other about on the battlefield, but she did feel them looking at her. Analyzing, wondering, thinking about her. And the inevitable questions would come, the hungering curiosity would bring to bear.

" _Who are you?"_

" _What are you?"_

" _How did you do that?"_

" _Do it again!"_

 _Do it again._

 _Do it again._

 _Now!_

She didn't know what had them wondering either. So she couldn't wait to figure it out. She needed the badge first of all. Then she needed to give Melia this destiny business or whatever. And then she needed to leave on the train and get forgotten as quickly as possible.

Pich chirruped by her neck.

Finally, Venam stopped sputtering and grinned. "Look at this cocky little squirt." She adjusted the egg. "Fine, you wanna play in the muck? Let's _play._ "

Ayame managed a grin through the thrum of her thoughts, the roar of _battle battle battle_ running through her gut. "Bring it."

* * *

These people were never happy with him. He never did enough. For Arceus' sake, he had a degree that he'd never wanted, studying pokemon _creation_ , establishment, packmating. Elm had been his mentor, shown him everything in that dull old building, how the eggs reacted differently to different stimuli, how environment pods didn't need fencing, all sorts of things that were important to coexistence.

And Jenner hadn't given a single shit at the time.

He wasn't quite sure if he did now. He didn't train pokemon. In his youth he couldn't have afforded to. He had been too busy in societal rebellion and all of that. (He misses that some days) and by the time adulthood had risen up the idea had eclipsed it. He had no experience with bonds and connections and the blurring line between human and animal monster. But Melia was more than happy to do that for him.

More than. Too much so.

He chewed the cap of his pen. Despite himself, the night had drawn him back to the profiles of trainers, the many living (and dead) people in his list of files. He would need to go through them in the morning. The Porygon would have a field day shredding it all. But now he was focused on one, only one. And it was unnerving him.

Ayame Kitsunebi of Ecruteak. Otherwise known, according to this, as Aevia Lucille.

Nancy Lucille's little girl.

Why had she acted like she wasn't? They had the same eyes, the same hair, unnaturally pink mixed with unnatural red. What was the benefit to lying to someone who had her papers? Was she a bastard from her mother, a famous idol? Was she from a forbidden love?

What else was a lie?

He had sent her to look after his daughter, and according to Melia, she had done so. Frighteningly. A woobat capable of a heart stamp strong enough to knock out a fresh garbodor. Two evolutions before bed, an eevee so thoroughly devoted to her it attacked to kill. And now she was fighting Venam on her first day, likely to win. She was definitely capable of protecting Melia.

But would she do it? He had watched her hide information without a blink, smile off the monstrous pokemon on her shoulder, thrash Ren and Amanda's pokemon without so much of a blink in her first seen battle. Was she trustworthy enough to protect Melia in the times to come?

Jenner gently turned a page in the file, his pen starting to crack.

 _Pronounced dead on July 7th-_

 _Pronounced alive on July 7th-_

 _Pronounced dead-_

 _Pronounced kissed by fire-_

 _Declaration of-_

"I don't think you should keep reading that," a high little voice said. "In fact, I think you should forget about that, all of it, if you please."

The cap shattered. Jenner looked up-

He woke up on the floor to Jan shaking him. "Easy there, fellow," Jan said, dark eyes intent on his face. "Look like you've seen a ghost."

Jenner looked around wildly. "I… no, I didn't I…"

"Easy," Jan repeated in that slow, deep, easy voice of his. Was it always like that? Jenner couldn't remember. His head spun like a child's top. "You've been overworking, old timer. I didn't hire you to keel over at your desk. Come on, this can all wait until tomorrow."

Jenner stared at him like a helpless child. Something wasn't right, not with this or him or-

"I was doing something," he tried to say. "I was checking, for Melia-"

"Melia's not going out to Goldenwood until tomorrow," Jan interrupted, steering him towards the door. "You asked her to do that, remember? The forest is nasty in the nighttime."

"I-" Yes, he had that was true, but that wasn't why. He couldn't remember why. "That girl, I… I need to speak with her. She has… she needs to know. I need to-"

"Girl?" Jan parroted slowly, leading him down the escalator. "Lot of girls here, doc."

"No!" His head felt weak, his limbs noodles and pain. "The girl, the pink one, she… she's not-"

"Doc." Jan's voice was no longer easy. It was steel. "Don't finish that thought out loud. Just don't do it. You hear?"

Jenner looked at him and saw pits instead of eyes. "You're one of them," he hissed. "You're one of them!"

"Of course I'm not." Jan gave the man a hefty shove, grumbling to himself. "I'm the last ally this place has _got._ Now don't say it out loud. Please. For the sake of your head. For Melia's sake. Just hush about it."

For Melia's sake. For Melia's sake.

Yes, Jenner thought. He could be silent for her.

He had for this long.

Jan put the man to bed. He was too young and too old for this.

"If people don't stop looking into this girl," he muttered. "I'm going to be out of a goddamn job."

Seriously, people needed to leave this kid alone. He wasn't responsible for what she'd do to them if they didn't.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** M_ oving things around because I understand why Jan and co did things the way they did, but I figured there needed to be some kind of acknowledgement of what just happened last chapter. Also Jan! You guys didn't think I'd throw the creator in here, did you? Don't worry he won't be showing up too much. I'm hoping someone figures out why I keep mentioning Ecruteak and everything else but if not... tune into Goldenleaf everyone!

 _Active Team_

 _Eevee_ (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

 _Isaiah_ (brionne) Torrent, lvl 17 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

 _Cheshire_ (woobat) Unaware, lvl 16 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

 _Trinity_ (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 16 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

 _Red_ (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 16 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

 _Cris_ (voltorb) Aftermath, lvl 15, Moves: Charge, Rollout, Sonicboom, Spark

 _Pich_ (pichu) Lightningrod, lvl 1, Moves: Thundershock, Charm

 _Borrowing_

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	11. Chapter 11 - Erosion

_Chapter Eleven - Erosion_

On an upside, there were trainers she hadn't fought in the gym. Also it did not smell like a sewer in here. Definitely another plus in this situation.

Cheshire chattered eagerly from by her head. _Is he bigger than he was when I caught him?_ His wings seemed longer, his fluffy body nearly the length of her upper arm. Was that what had everyone acting so weird? After all, people normally didn't just leave battles with shell shock on their faces? That happened before and when Venam had wanted to talk to her, it had happened again. This little pause. Did they… not understand? She was in a hurry. They wanted to examine. She needed to find her mother. And this was taking away valuable time. It would take too long for her to not train her pokemon as carefully as she could in a matter of hours.

… Maybe there was something wrong with her.

She examined the tall factory building one more time. _I expected something more like a seviper or a concert hall…_ Wouldn't that fit better? Considering all of the noise she had made.

Oh well, it was none of her business what Venam did or didn't do. She just had to get the badge and go to bed.

And she would, no matter what it took.

Cheshire chirruped at her ear, flapping by her side as she entered the factory. It still didn't smell. Maybe they were using those Alola grimers that only ate garbage and not sewage. Those things would be a brute force thing definitely. She was not going to risk that or anything else.

In the meantime though…

"Heart Stamp!" she ordered and Cheshire knocked the koffing into the ground, chirping with glee.

"Ugly little things ain't they?" said one of the gym trainers. What was his name? Ayame wasn't sure she cared. "Too bad you don't have a ground type. That would make this gym pretty easy for you, huh?"

Ayame clicked her tongue, calling for Trinity, who sent sparks of flame at an unprepared bellsprout.

The trainer frowned. "I'm just trying to make conversation… don't have to be such a jerk about it."

Ah yes, his name was Lenny. Aya made a face. "What am I supposed to say?"

Lenny shrugged. "I dunno, call my jokes funny or something?"

Aya really didn't want to know. "Uh… I'll think about it. Sorry…" She fiddled with the hem of her dress and went towards the stairs.

Lenny watched her go, brow furrowed. "Weirdo," he mumbled, and went to go heal his pokemon.

Ayame did hear that, but she dismissed it out of hand. It was a statement she'd heard before, and as long as she had a goal, she could easily ignore it.

She would remember it later, and remember who said it later.

The next room held a girl and she fell as quickly as the boy. Said girl glared at her. "What did you feed that bat anyway?" She snapped.

Cheshire chatted with annoyance, a pink glow wrapping around his fuzzy body. Ayame scowled at him. "No." The bat made a face, no longer smiling for a moment.

In the last room, Aya looked at the four vats. A thought slowly occurred to her. "Is this safe?"

The gym trainer let out a snort. "As healthy as it's gonna be for Venam."

That didn't sound good. "That's rude."

The responding shrug made Aya's eyes roll so hard they almost fell out of her skull. On the one hand it was nice to be dismissed without a second thought herself. On the other… weren't these supposed to be Venam's friends?

 _I guess this is what they mean when pokemon become a trainer's real friends,_ she thought to herself. When she had been in training, as a kimono girl, she had had friends, good ones. Your class was full of friends, made up of family. Everyone knew each other in your class of eight to ten. And your one pokemon was a friend too, but likely a much younger, or a much more mature friend. You were meant to be powerful. You were supposed to fight tooth and nail for every stone you left in the road. It wasn't an insult.

 _It's starting to feel that way here,_ she thought, pressing in the last set of poisons.

But that was what she wanted, really. Wasn't she getting exactly what she wanted?

It felt bitter though, very bitter.

She reached a room that smelled sweet, with purple and pink trees growing from a patch of earth, red red berries rolling on the ground, pink pecha staining the floor at her feet. Aya was glad she had bought berries, though with those her money was barely enough to get dinner that wasn't trainer rations. Venam at least better give her 150 poke so she could replenish her bag and supply items.

"Oh there you are." Venam sat high up on a balcony, legs swinging and a red and white guitar falling slack on her shoulders. "You didn't take your time, did ya?"

Aya raised an eyebrow. "It… wasn't too hard. You sent bellsprout at me." Not even Sprout Tower bellsprout, which could choke rhyhorn. Just regular bellsprout that didn't really have much poison in them unless they got their bells up long enough.

"Don't be so smug," Venam said with a wry grin. "You gonna throw down or what?" She cast the guitar off of her and put it to the side, where the egg sat in a mess of blankets.

"Whenever you're ready," Aya replied, calling back Cheshire.

Venam cracked her knuckles. "All right, let's break this bad boy in. Grimer, melt her to the bone!" She tossed a ball and instead of a purple grimer came out a green and yellow creature sliding to the ground and rising back up in a slurping sound. It gaped at Aya with a few visible teeth and gurgled.

 _Gross!_ "That's nasty," she said to herself, flicking her pokedex to look at it. _Poison and Dark… great._ She didn't even have to think. "Trinity, attrition!" She let out the fletchinder, who squawked her disapproval and challenge.

Venam scowled and hopped to her feet. "Damn, I was hoping you'd use a land pokemon. Ah well… Poison Gas!"

Grimer belched out smoke, pure purple and odorless. It spread further into the field, wafting out through the vents.

Aya waved her hand in sharp, quick jerks. "Ember!"

The little fireballs flew through the gas. It ignited, exploding before the fireballs could even hit grimer.

"Acid Spray!"

Another belch, but this one was _solid._ It spewed green and spread across the battlefield, setting the grass to waft out a sweet scent. So much for this being a long distance battle. Trinity dodged and swooped up to the ceiling. She was just small enough that the ceiling did not stifle her flying. For now, anyway.

"Spray 'em again!"

Aya hesitated a moment, watching Trinity circle the battlefield in desperate attempts to dodge. "Quick Attack!"

Trinity dove, shining white and smashing into the slime.

The Grimer, simply put, exploded, poison gas filling the air as it did. Venam made a face. "Regroup! Regroup!"

As the sludge hit the ground, it started scooting forwards, towards the center.

"Ember!"

THe little fireballs burst the grimer bits further, leaving crystals on the ground quivering and spinning.

"Hurry!" Venam's voice rose with anger and the bits continued to move.

But Ayame knew the best way to combat regeneration: _don't let it._ "Again!" The pressure had to go on the trainer, either pressure the enemy trainer to see sense and call it back, or wear out your pokemon. But this early on? It was easy to be too afraid to think straight and get a draw.

Or want to see your pokemon suffer that much.

Aya watched Venam's hands twitch with indignation, and then take the pokeball back from her hip. The girl's brown eyes burned as they looked right at her. Aya met them. This wasn't like the deoxys on the boat or- or anything she had experienced before. Anger was better than curiosity anyway. Anger met a lack of rational thinking eventually, and reckless decisions.

She knew that well.

Ayame whistled and Trinity flapped back down to the nearest creaky tree branch. When it held, Aya risked a few precious seconds to see the bird's wings shaking, large chest heaving, purple bubbles dripping out instead of blood.

Poison. Trinity did not have long until she fainted. Pokemon dying from poison was rare in a city or town, but in the wild, it was so common most pokemon didn't care anymore. But still, it meant that her time here would be over in seconds.

"Water Pulse!" The shout made Ayame turn and then turn again as the solid ball of water threw Trinity into the opposite wall. THere were cracks as fragile wing bones met concrete and Trinity barely managed to yelp in pain before crashing to the floor in a heap.

Seconds passed.

Then Trinity yelped in pain, hopping into the air in a drunken sort of twist. She flapped both wings furiously, one wing slower than the other. Purple flickers washed over her wings and feathers fell from the tips.

Aya nodded grimly. A poisonous floor. She had expected as much.

Venam was grinning, but it was weaker. She'd expected to throw Aya with the Alola grimer, but Aya knew any gym leader worth their salt could counter type advantages, or at the very least would try to. And with all the bug and poison types around, like caterpie and woobat, she'd figured Venam would have come up with something. If she'd had a marshtomp or something, it wouldn't have been a contest.

"Field's a bitch, ain't it?" Venam finally said. She sounded a wee bit smug, but mostly she just sounded annoyed. "Kicks all your groundies down a notch."

"Sounds like you," Aya said with as much cheek as she could muster. Her energy, and she suspected her pokemon's, was starting to flag. She almost regretted making this battle happen so soon. Not enough, though. Not enough. "Do you want to keep going, Trinity?" Aya called, deciding to press on.

Trinity let out a weak chirp and fluttered over to her. Aya knelt a little to let the bird nuzzle her cheek and chirp in misery. She smiled at her instead, stroking her feathers down. "Good work," she said, returning the bird with a gentle clunk of the ball. Aya unclipped the next ball. "Cheshire!"

As the woobat appeared on site, somebody coughed.

"Water Pulse!" Venam called and the pokemon slowly began to glow blue. A heart stamp slammed into the mareanie, throwing it backwards. It lifted itself back up on its stubby legs, stumbling with the weight of its head.

"Confusion," Aya said. Cheshire chittered and the stumbling creature began to twist and jerk, glowing blue as it rose. Cheshired bobbed in the air as the mareanie rose higher and higher before suddenly crashing into the ground. Cheshire wheezed, whole body expanding and contracting as he caught his breath.

Venam winced and pulled out a third pokemon. Aya returned Cheshire as a salandit slithered up into view and let out Isaiah. He barked in pain as he landed but braced himself on the rotted purple grass. The salandit blinked its narrowed eyes, flicking out her tongue in proper curiosity. Then she belched out gas and flames.

"Aqua Jet!"

Isaiah flew, into the gas and fire, knocking into Salandits head. It belched out more fireballs, tail swishing. Salandit snickered as the fire struck Isaiah in the face, earning frantic barks and yips of pain.

Then it shrieked in agony, eating the water gun in full force and sending both pokemon into the grass. It rose up just a little bit faster and pelted out purple fireballs instead of embers, each the size of Ayame's fist. Immediately afterwards, however, salandit slumped to the floor with a helpless wheeze, coughing and hacking from the weight of the dragon rage.

Ayame whistled sharply and clapped her hands over her ears. Isaiah, rolled onto his back, squirmed about to lift his head up.

Then the brionne screeched, causing everyone else in the room to clap their hands over their ears. The sound _cut_ into the purple and golden fires as they got closer, dispersing the closest ones into nothing. The sound kept the other two slowly shoved backwards.

Then, Isaiah had to breathe, taking a big gulp of air in. He exhaled in a screech of pain as the two remaining fireballs struck his prone belly, rolling him backwards with the force.

"Finally," Venam managed to say. "I got an edge."

The salandit went flying from confusion a few seconds later.

"Damn it," Venam muttered.

* * *

"Good to see the kid can struggle, at least."

Ren's voice was wry, tired, terrified, in equal measure,watching the fresh trubbish nearly explode at the seams with garbage before being returned. "I'm not even sure if it's a struggle considering she and her pokemon have been training all day," Melia mused, tapping her chin. "It's more of a disadvantage of _exhaustion_ , rather than anything."

The woobat flew over their heads, ducking away from the great red fangs of Venam's seviper, who was looking downright ferocious. Melia watched the nerve tick in Venam's jaw as she barked out orders from above. They could barely hear Aya at all from their seats

"Still. She's got limits." He grinned at her. "You may not get completely _thrashed_ tomorrow."

"Bite me," Melia replied without any real heat. "I'm going to beat her just fine."

"Yeah okay, let me know how that goes."

There was a horrid splat and both of them looked back at the match to see acid corroding into the field. Seviper was swaying in place, head rising and eyes glaring at the woobat.

"Venam's Kiss," Melia breathed. "Oh she's pissed."

"Get 'em down!" the punk girl barked.

"Charge up!" Aya's reply was calm by turns. And in turn, Cheshire began to glow pink.

"Bite!" Seviper lunged and Cheshire squeaked and dodged, leaving seviper's fangs to sink into the bottom of the bat's spherical body.

Cheshire's attack exploded as he flinched in pain, slamming seviper back into the earth.

"What the _hell?"_ Venam was beaming but it was a smile laced with rage. "Who the hell said you could push me like this?"

Aya didn't even blink. "Heart Stamp."

They watched the woobat let out a cackle. Even Aya looked at them with concern. But he did not form a Heart Stamp. Instead, he glowed a pure, bright white.

"What."

"Where's a god damn white flag," Melia heard Venam mutter.

But Melia watched, and carefully, as Ayame began to sway on her feet. "Venam!" she shouted, and the girl pitched towards the floor.

For a moment, the room froze.

Then a pale blue light caught Ayame, settling her to the ground. Cheshire the swoobat looked on at her for a few seconds more. Then he let out a screech of challenge in Venam's direction.

The teenager thought about it a moment. Then she raised her hands in surrender. "I'm good, thanks."

* * *

 ** _A/N:_ ** Okay, unless you're writing 10k long fic of doom, and even then, a six-on-six battle non-stop is actually an absolute pain to write. I apologize for this one not being quite as good as it could have been. It will get better. Also to that guest reviewer, thank you!

 _Active Team_

Eevee (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

Isaiah (brionne) Torrent, lvl 18 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

Cheshire (swoobat) Unaware, lvl 19 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

Trinity (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 18 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

Red (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 17 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

Cris (voltorb) Aftermath, lvl 17, Moves: Charge, Rollout, Sonicboom, Spark

Pich (pichu) Lightningrod, lvl 1, Moves: Thundershock, Charm

Borrowing

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	12. Chapter 12 - Shades of Gold

_Warnings: Mentions of past war, internalized child soldier mentality._

* * *

 _Chapter Twelve - Shades of Gold_

Ayame awoke with a start to the sound of swishing curtains in the wind. At the first smell of clean and antiseptic washed over tiles and walls, she rolled over onto her stomach, burying her face in the safety of the thin pillow to breathe. Burying her face in it, Aya forced herself to do it, reminding her lungs of what they needed to do in this situation. The blessed darkness filled her vision for a few moments, allowing her to recollect herself.

She'd been battling… Venam. Yeah, and then Cheshire had started glowing and then everything had gone very very dark. And now she was in the hospital. She must have passed out. But why?

"You supercharged your woobat," said a nasally voice that made Ayame's hair stand on end. No. Shit. No she had been trying to avoid him. They? It?

"I use male pronouns, _thank you_ ," Arceus said, still above her head. She felt four tiny paws jab into her back rather like the head horn of a baby rhyhorn. "And I'm glad you haven't tried running around and screaming this time. Your energy levels aren't quite back to normal yet."

"My what?" Her head sloshed all of a sudden, like the sake in her dad's bowl after a long week.

"You supercharged your woobat, all of your pokemon, really. Those humans noticed and had a lot of fancy words about it. But in this case, you got a swoobat, passed out after that, and the girl with the screechy voice forfeited. You have a lot of work to do to fix this." Did that little bastard sound smug? "Be happy, you've got a badge, just like you wanted."

Ayame made a sound of inarticulate upset and earned a snort. "You really think you'll escape being significant don't you kid?" The creature stepped off of her body with great, casual ease. "You can't. I wish you could, but you can't. This stuff's been in the works since before I woke up. You can't escape it, and it's better not to try."

"S' you're the god of destiny now," Ayame breathed and pushed herself up by her arms, still refusing to look at god himself like she had suddenly lost religion.

"Nah, just know the tropes." As she opened her eyes back up the little Arceus was on her pillow, looking her dead in the face. "The call knows where you live, after all."

Ayame admitted later on to screaming so loudly that she woke some nearly dead person three doors down. The surgeon flown in for the problem proclaimed the man so healthy he would live another three decades at the absolute minimum.

The other consequence of that very scream was calling two doctors, a Joy and a nurse down to the poor girl's room. The medical professionals came in and saw their patient staring at an empty pillow and with a pokeball clutched tightly in her hands.

"Miss Kitsunebi?" The doctor said, voice cautious both in pronouncing (bastardizing) her name and in speaking to her.

The girl turned, hackles still raised high for a moment. Then she relaxed, slowly. The second doctor was scribbling on a spare piece of paper. The nurse didn't even want to guess what he was writing. Probably another addition to his evidence of "ptsd symptoms in trainer corralled youth" he'd been penning since his doctorate. He elbowed the man as she slowly moved into a normal sitting position. The Joy at his side had a look of consternation as she held the pokeball tray in hand.

"Y-Yes?"She didn't try to stand up, thankfully. "I-I'm sorry, a pokemon came in through the window and my bag was nearby so…"

Sure enough the bag that the nurse had initially left a short distance away was now on the bed with pokeballs and berries spilling out.

"Oh thank goodness," the doctor said, seeing the utter lack of monstrous destruction and tax bills thrown away as a very good sign to enter. "That's much better than what _most_ trainers do and rack up their bill over a pidgey."

"Already caught a pidgey," Aya mumbled absently, rolling the ball over her palm before throwing it hard into the air. The doctor opened his mouth to retract his statement when the tiny sphere vanished into multicolored light.

"I see…" The man looked distinctly ruffled. "Well, if we could go over your condition…"

The Joy felt sympathy at the look that twisted the young girl's face. The man truly had no understanding of trainer clients.

By the time it was over, Ayame's hair was starting to frizz, and not just because they warned her of possible anemia or due to the baby pokemon now in her lap.

She had just sent _Arceus_ to her parents' house. Or some piece of him. Whatever. They had been talking about getting her that new Pokemon Box for her bag, but it was expensive and pcs were in most towns. It hadn't seemed worth it.

Knowing her luck, she'd have one by tomorrow after this.

* * *

Venam sat in the lobby, Ren and Melia on the other side of the table. A tray of food sat in front of the one empty chair. The three of them were arguing over their food, Venam looking particularly belligerent and Melia irritated. Ren looked more exasperated than anything, each of their expressions twisted into various frowns.

"I'm giving her the damn badge."

"She didn't beat your sixth pokemon," Melia argued. "This isn't Kanto, you can't give away badges just because you feel sorry for her."

"Feel sorry for her? Melia, she was sweeping my team with three pokemon. Just cause you need your dad's permission to do a jumping jack-"

"I do not-"

"Look, I'm the leader of that gym for some damn reason. At your gym you can toss people's hopes and dreams with a smile on your face, but the fact is that pokemon would have gone on and murdered my last pokemon without trying. It took down my seviper and that thing is built better than any of the little ones I've got. I'm not taking any chances on a more positive rematch."

Ren watched Melia open her mouth to argue and awkwardly raised his hand. "You can't really talk about ethics, we set a garbodor on the electrical wiring under the city."

It was immensely satisfying to see their friend (mutual crush?) flush so red that she looked sunburned.

The lobby doors slid open. By reflex, all three of them turned and looked to see someone with spiky pink hair coming inside. They shook their head, looking for a towel. A pichu and an eevee trailed after them. They hopped out of the way of the two shaking furballs, red eyes tracing across the room until they caught sight of the three formerly arguing teenagers. They managed a weak smile and looked up at them.

"Hey guys," Ayame managed to say. "I'm fine now. Thanks."

"Where'd your hair go?" Venam managed to say. "You were like, down your back there."

Aya scratched her head. "The nice lady at the Petal Lily shop offered to give me a haircut in exchange for letting her daughter massage my eevee without biting."

"Huh. She's never been that nice to me," Ren said with a low huff.

Ayame blinked at him, giving nothing away. "Weird."

"Eh, it's fine." Venam gestured. "Come eat, come eat!"

Ayame's face flushed. "Thanks." She sat down beside them and murmured thanks for the food. Her pokemon settled by her chair. She fed them scrapes as she ate, chewing slowly. She twitched to just dump the tray into her face. It would be rude.

"So," Venam said in a voice that was probably supposed to be conversational.

"So?"

"You earned my badge earlier."

Melia watched Aya swallow her food. "Did I?" Her voice was thick with caution.

"You didn't beat her sixth pokemon," Ren added. "But it's Venam's decision and she's decided you get your badge."

"Mmn." The girl was quiet. "Does that go against any regulations?"

"Shouldn't, it's just unethical." Melia grumbled at the last part.

"It's really not," Ren shot back, seemingly emboldened now. "Other regions use apprenticeships and significant deeds just fine. We just don't have the credentials."

"And it's weak," Melia grumbled. "Just because Tohjo doesn't need strong battlers…"

"Just because Aevium doesn't have any," Aya said without hesitation. Ren barked out a laugh and Melia's cheeks colored darker.

"What do you think the gym leaders are?"

"Here and now, decorated teachers and pillars of worth if they're lucky." Aya dabbed at her mouth, if only to try and hide the twitch of her mouth. "In the past though, Kanto used to call them "the strongest of the red shirts", and considering the state of the region, that's likely going to remain the case. Most people can't afford the cost of gyms and lots of pokemon and training. Even with the free pokemon center movements and the item restrictions to badges and things like that, it's still digging into pockets."

"That's not right."

Melia had clenched her fist so hard the metal was starting to warp. "If that's the case, then everyone should have an equal chance, an equal something somehow." She got up from her chair. "I'm going to talk to Dad. He-He'll have some ideas on where I can start."

And she was gone from the table like a flash. Aya stared after her, both eyebrows high.

Ren and Venam both laughed. "She likes a cause, really," Ren admitted. "it's not personal. She always feels better about things when she thinks she can do something about them."

"... Huh."

"Yeah." Seemingly satisfied, Venam reached into her pocket and handed Aya the badge. Aya took the piece of purple metal, watching it glint "Here, stick it to your card. before you put it in your case or whatever."

Aya obeyed and watched the symbol form on the card. "Neat."

"Ain't it?" Aya felt Venam elbowed her in the arm. "Now finish up. Tomorrow you have to thrash Melia so she stops freaking out."

Aya gleefully started eating again, glad the entire mess was over.

Then Venam said, "She's just freaking out because she's going to be a gym leader starting the end of the week and she has no idea what the hell she's doing." This caused Aya to nearly spit out her food.

"She's what?" Aya managed to say after choking it down. _Deli's going to be so jealous._ Her cousin couldn't even get Lavender Town to put her foot in the door.

"They're desperate for a full league here," Ren said, picking at his food. "We have never had a full league. People always win their badges from the tournament, and that's not enough people to give the elite eight much to work with. Hence why they're all going nuts up there, like Karen."

"Karen? Was she wearing lots of reddish stuff?"

Ren nodded.

"Oh I met her at the pier."

Both teenagers stared at her.

"You what."

* * *

"Oh Aya, look at your hair! It's beautiful."

"Th-Thanks, Miss Tesla." Aya pulled herself free of Tesla's strong hug, taking a large gulp of air. "What are you doing here?"

The woman laughed and let her go entirely. "I was just getting something for work. the fallen leaves from Goldenwood make great massage oil. Have you had any luck in these past couple of days?" At Ayame's shake of her head the woman's smile drifted into a frown. "I'm sorry."

"It's only been a couple of days," Ayame said with a weak smile. "I wasn't expecting much."

"Except a badge, apparently." Tesla pointed at the strap of Ayame's bag. "Pretty conspicuous there, you must have gotten a lot of looks."

Ayame's dark cheeks flushed. "Maybe?" Aya, having gotten out of bed as soon as possible in case god was watching her sleep or worse, had paid attention to nobody's looks on her way to the train station this morning. He _hadn't,_ which may have proved that pokeballs and the pc worked on even godly creatures. "I wasn't looking."

Tesla placed her hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm only teasing." She waited for Aya's tremulous smile before continuing. "Now, what brings _you_ down here?"`

"A-uhm- I promised a friend I'd help their friend get through the forest. Apparently they're direction challenged." She wasn't actually Venam's friend, to be sure, but what Tesla didn't know wouldn't hurt her in this case.

Tesla's eyes went wide. "That's wonderful, sweetheart!"

The word made Aya's eyes mist over but she also felt her smile widen before she could quite control it. "Thanks."

Tesla didn't even pause, plopping a ticket into Aya's hand along with some potions. "I…" Aya began, only for the woman to shush her.

"I have the money to spare, you know. And you're a young, fresh trainer. You need all you can save. Now go on, don't keep the dear waiting."

Ayame escaped, murmuring a thank you as she leaped towards the train. As she settled in for the hopefully short ride, her transceiver buzzed. She opened it up and out popped a picture of a very familiar street. Except of course that people were fleeing out of sight of the shot, screaming with terror by the looks of things.

And there, standing on a pedestal and looking very pleased with themselves, was that tiny Arceus.

Aya, with no better source of stress relief, slammed her head against the back of her chair three times.

* * *

"Oh, there you are." Melia's expression brightened at the sight of her. "Did you sleep in?"

"Nope." Aya tried to smile, even more out of place than ever with a lack of even Ren to act as a buffer between the apparent crusader that Melia seemed to be. She even _looked_ official with her big suitcase and neat black shoes. The big white flower in her hair ruined it but that was probably for the best. "I met up with someone at the train station is all."

"Ooh…" Melia looked much more relaxed today, as if the badge that Aya had carefully hidden under the flap of her bag no longer held any meaning to her. "A secret penpal."

Aya's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch at the thought. "Pretty much," she said without hesitation. Accepting this lie was easier than telling the truth. because now she had the proof and the truth to give to the girl, to invite and offer her to… do her job and make this work. If there was even still a choice in the matter. There had to be. This wasn't like the last time.

Melia only smiled wider. "Come on, let's get going. I'm sure you want to catch something and we have a lot of rockruff and lycanroc making their dens here."

Aya felt the curiosity perk up in her heart. "Rockruff?"

Melia laughed, but this one was indulgent in its affection, like a friend's awkward come to terms with something different. "They got sent over here a few years ago to help with paving the road. They just stuck around with the vivillion. Shall we?"

Aya nodded, but even the enthusiasm of a new catch didn't dampen the low rumble of dread choking her throat.

This was a nice self-righteous girl who Arceus had claimed would jump at the chance for a nice self-righteous quest. Was it right to ruin her life when she'd worked so hard to get something of her own, something she had dreamed of? Had it been right for God to ruin hers? Was Aya just being a hypocrite.

Unknowingly, Melia tried hard to get her out of it, helping random people in the forest, examining flowers and looking for all the world like an ordinary child.

The envy boiled in her gut, so hot it almost burned her.

Oh, she could do it after all. But-

Ayame swallowed, looking at the vivilion perching comfortably on her head. but she _knew_ what she could do. She couldn't trust a variety of variables like Melia, who she'd barely known for a day or two.

"You get it, don't you?" she tried to say to the insect. The vivillion flapped its blue wings. "You understand."

The pokemon cooed its affirmative and coaxed a scatterbug into one of Ayame's pokeballs.

"Aya?" Melia waved to her and pointed to the fisherman. "Look, he might have something!"

Aya turned her head obediently just to watch a magikarp flop uselessly into the dirt.

It was funny, sure, but it wasn't funny enough.

Instead, for some reason, Ayame just felt ready to throw up.

But she bore it, she ignored it. And then she forgot it at the sight of what could have been a pikachu if it had been a little cleaner. The pichu in her hood didn't react to it but eevee _did_ , hissing and starting to arch upwards like an offended glameow.

So a fairy type maybe? Every time she had let the piano lady's jigglypuff for exercise, and watched the disappointment float more and more to life as she did, the more often eevee had growled. So it was likely due to fairy types. And the only fairy types that looked like a pikachu were dedenne, who was too small and…

"Mimikyu!" The sheer delight in her voice made the little creature turn, burbling its dislike at being involved in anything.

"Must be from Goldenleaf." Melia came up behind her. (She'd been behind her, Aya had just been trying hard to ignore how loudly she stepped in the dirt, how much dust she had kicked up. "The ghost leader lives there." Aya only looked up after offering her arms to the little ghost, who hesitated before accepting her warm hug. Aya earned a delighted little chitter as she smoothed the fabric of the clothes. She saw Melia's face, a little twisted with something she can't read and doesn't think she should.

"What's with Goldenleaf?"

Melia shook her head. "City hates foreigners. No one knows the exact why but they hate outsiders and tourists. The place has been mourning for at least a decade and a half and people coming in and out… it's no wonder things went downhill the way they did. They're barely keeping themselves going without that pokemart and the help center got rioted out of town and-"

There was a sound to their right, the sound of something inflating and bouncing at the same time that Aya also knew from memory. "Drifblim," she said, letting Melia stop talking and her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

The giant purple balloon made a familiar warbling sound at her and waved his appendages.

"Cute," Aya told him, earning a gurgle. The mimikyu in her arms let out a noise of discontent. "Come on now," she told them. "Back home with you." It let out another irritable gurgle but obediently scooted on top of the Drifblim's head-body.

Soon they were gone, leaving Melia and Aya staring after them as the latter waved at the clawed fingers of the mimikyu.

"You like ghosts don't you?" Melia said before she could stop herself. "That shuppet's popped out of your bag at least twice today and now those…"

Aya blinked a bit and looked away for a moment. She was going to exorcise that shuppet for escaping the pc After she wrapped her mind about whatever Melia was trying to say. She was the same with cute pokemon too, what made this any different? But then, it was at least a little different, so there was no point in lying about it.

"Sometimes," Aya said after a moment, when the warm heat from her back had died down and she could breathe again from the level of forbidden comfort she had just felt. "I like the dead more than I like the living."

She paused, watching Melia's face soften and harden and twist in turns, as people's faces often did if they hadn't lived in Ecruteak or another ghost town. It was the way the ghost towns sprang up, full of the chill of the dead even in the summer, and they accompanied you or you accompanied them. She couldn't see them, her family had made sure for some reason, but she could hear them, and sometimes the sound was enough mixed with the touch of things not there. Sometimes the sound made things worse, but sometimes it gave answers that led to little warm patches on the street or flung open, creaking doors. The ghost towns were for death to play peacekeeper and memory holder. It was a small price to pay to get accustomed to it. At least it should be.

"Right now though." Aya managed a grin. "I want to see that big bad cave of yours."

Melia nodded jerkily, pulled back into herself like a new child with a brand new place. "Right. Where I'll make you eat dirt."

Aya whistled softly for her new rockruff. Sadie barked with delight, freeing herself from the flowers. "If you can keep up with me."

* * *

 ** _A/N:_ ** Yes that just happened, no he will not be on her main team. My friend Onix has been throwing ideas back and forth with me and he was like hey, what if she had him in her pokedex, so this happened?

Also, following the end of what would be V1 content, this fic _will_ be heading up to M for obvious reasons. For now I am keeping it at T because post that, things are going to be getting a lot rougher than T can handle. I'm not changing it now because there's not long left and I want to make it a smooth transition. :D Thanks! Please drop a review in the box if you've gotten this far and thank you so much!

Active Team

 _Eevee_ (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

 _Isaiah_ (brionne) Torrent, lvl 18 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

 _Cheshire_ (swoobat) Unaware, lvl 19 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

 _Trinity_ (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 18 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

 _Red_ (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 17 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

 _Sadie_ (rockruff) Steadfast, lvl 15 Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Bite, Rock Throw

 _Pich_ (pichu) Lightningrod, lvl 1, Moves: Thundershock, Charm

Borrowing

 _Puff_ (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	13. Chapter 13 - A Sign of Disaster

_Warnings of implied violence, otherness._

* * *

 _Chapter Thirteen - A Sign of Disaster_

Entering the cave brough a cool brush of air to her face, letting Aya wipe at the sweat underneath her bangs. A few finneon splashed about in the pool to her left, followed by a few basculin. Aya almost wished she had brought her buizel out with her. But Arthur was still too skittish around people. He was better off with the skitty, who was better off at home. Then again considering she'd gotten an image of a certain family member floating upside down in front of an arceus, she wasn't too sure that was better.

Isaiah liked it though and she was more than happy to let him splash around as they walked inside. Melia was just ahead, grinning like a fool.

"Time to put your money where your mouth is," the blonde declared, holding out a pokeball.

Aya stared for a moment. "We're going to fight in here?" Not that she minded but that seemed profoundly unfair. To Melia. Of course.

Melia's cheeks colored. "Well yes, eventually, but I've seen you battle. Let's see you work together with me."

 _Oh. Double battles. Again._ "All right…" Isaiah poked his head up from the water with a bark. "You stay there sweetie," Aya said with a faint smile. "Let's give the others some fun too. Right Pich?" Pich squirmed out from Ayame's hood and squeaked agreement, hopping down to flex his tiny limbs.

Melia giggled. "Well, I suppose I can't argue with that. The little guy could use the experience watching. I thought you would bring your voltorb along."

"I sent him home to keep an eye on my weedle." Who needed a good shocking. "Let's get to it!" She pumped a single, dark fist to keep from saying much more, too much open air, and not just turning around and leaving now that they'd reached where Melia needed to go.

Melia led her down the path, Isaiah splashing after them alongside the furiously scurrying Pich. Ayame was tempted to scoop him up, but if nothing else he was going to practice running and getting his speed up for when he evolved. When, not if.

"Hey look it's Melia," called a boy from atop a rock with a sneer firm on his lips. "Finally come crawling back, eh? Need more of a beat down?"

"I think I remember my buneary sending your machop across the room," Melia said in a sugary sweet voice that made Aya almost roll her eyes. Almost. Teenagers were weird.

"It was a fluke!" The boy turned his cap around, waving a rude finger. "I'll steamroll right over you!"

 _Man, people talk weird in this region._ "Do you have anything other than a machop?" she decided to ask, breaking into the trash talk for the heck of it. "Because otherwise I have a couple of pokemon who could eat you."

"That a threat shrimp?"

Ayame bristled. That kid was at least fifteen centimeters shorter than her. "It's a promise if you keep that up."

Trinity burst from her ball and the battle began.

An hour later, Aya let out a soft wheeze of breath, pocketing the poke from their last opponent. "Not bad," she said as her smaller pokemon curled around her feet to catch their breath. "Even Pich is looking good."

Pich chirped. Said pichu's ears were starting to shrink in width and lengthen, yellow body growing a little larger to match the comical size of his head. Still not particularly heavy. Eevee however, remained unchanged at Pich's side, barring the violet color of her eyes becoming more and more visible as opposed to the previous dull color that had reminded Ayame of dirty dish water.

Melia laughed. "Not bad?" Her buneary, sparkling in the sun as all her team did, had a single droopy ear and a disgruntled look on his face. As far as Aya knew that was just how buneary did things. "Aya, your pokemon are drooping."

Sadie, her new rockruff, barked her disagreement. Melia wrinkled her nose.

"Back me up here!"

Aya laughed. After a moment, Melia joined her, her shoulders slumping slightly in relief or exhaustion. Ayame couldn't tell which. The thought of the tiny arceus' voice, his casual remarks, bubbled in her stomach.

After a couple more chuckles, Melia set down the suitcase she'd been carrying the whole time, turning towards the back of the cave and staring at the wall. From what Ayame could see it was covered in scribbled inscriptions, or possibly some runes. It wasn't unown letters or even the scratch they used at home or the pawprint runes or the Unovan script they used here.

Aya's eyes swam the longer she looked at them.

"What did your dad want for you to find here?"

"Honestly I have no idea." Melia scanned the room, popping the case open again with a flick of her wrist and a quick code. "He said he thought he missed something but I've been coming here since we moved to Gearen and I got Hapi. What's there to miss, you know?"

"Fair," Ayame agreed, if only for no clue as to what else she could possibly say.

"Still, I'll take a few photos and see what the internet gets me."

Aya nodded and wandered away towards the water once more. As she settled down to pet Isaiah's head, something scuttled past her butt. She turned to see a leafy caterpillar dip its head into the water and drink. She did not reach out to pet it. For all she knew it belonged in the wrong environment and was going to cause some problems. It was the Unovan bug right? The very flammable one that people used to make bases for repair work foundations?

"Oh dear, is she bothering you?"

Aya looked up to see-

"Novae?" They had the same white hair, but there were more visible laugh lines down her face and each lock much more likely to fly away from her earlobes. "Oh, sorry…"

The woman chuckled. "No, do not apologize. I have been told we look alike. Anyway, is this little one bothering you?"

Ayame blinked at the sewaddle, who had taken the opportunity to climb on her ankle and nibble at her sock. "Not particularly, no."

"Wonderful. She bores very easily you see."

Ayame tilted her head back to see Melia from upside down. She was rummaging in her suitcase now, pulling out something small and silver. "I can't say I don't feel the same."

"Then how about a battle to pass the time?" The woman released a creature that could easily look Ayame in the eyes. Her eye twitched and she whistled. Trinity, who had been lazily circling the water overhead, flew down to her arm and perched. She refused to let her arm dip at the weight,earning a sympathetic smile.

"I'm ready when you are."

Ayame rose to her feet and nodded, sending Trinity forward with a single wave of her arm.

* * *

Melia had never been fond of photography. Cameras were always too small and it required a lot of not fidgeting. She wasn't Venam, who had to be paid to stay still. (It had taken a bet from Ren to get her to sit through a two hour movie without singing off-key to the soundtrack when she could hit a note just fine, pelt them both with pretzel sticks and not break Melia's mirror.) But the patience of the hobby escaped her all of the time. Things had to reach the timing of the perfect moment. And even her father chided her terrible sense of timing. It left moves just a little off to the side, her partners eating blows a little more than they should have.

Like her buneary, who was wheezing now at her foot, having refused to go into the pokeball and still nursing a blow to the ribs from that last trainer's machop. He grumbled in irritation as he sat. Ayame's pichu was nearby, leaping from

"You're the one who won't let me give you a potion," she said, turning the camera another way to try and get a bit more clarity in her photo. The writing on the wall, whatever it was, kept blurring in her vision even on the photos saved in the memory card. It was annoying. Maybe she had a headache from all of this battling.

A loud screech came from her left and she turned to see Trinity the fletchinder landing on the cave dirt, wings spread and screeching her pride to the high heavens… or at least the roof of this cave. Slumped by the water was the thin, spindly form of a leavanny. It raised an arm and swung it to the side, sending curved leaves to cut dangerous grooves into Trinity's open wings. Trinity cawed but swung the appendages down anyway and dripping blood onto the rock. Ayame whistled and Trinity shot off in a burst of white light, knocking the opponent into the water.

"Out of bounds," called the woman Ayame was fighting. "Smart choice, young one."

Melia watched as Aya bowed her head. "I have a long way to go, ma'am,"she said in answer, eyes sober as she returned Trinity at last, the bird still cawing her triumph.

"So does your bird, for all she acts otherwise."

Aya laughed and it sounded tired, proud. "She was a cocky catch. I'm not going to make her change that if she doesn't have to."

The woman laughed herself and recalled her own pokemon. "I suppose that is a choice as well." She let out a small squeak of a noise at the end of her sentence and a small leafy caterpillar at this point had waddled over to Ayame's foot. It chirped in bemusement. Aya knelt and before Melia's eyes, let it clamber up her arm. The caterpillar gurgled and squeaked, touching pods with Pich's nose as the mouse came to investigate.

Melia curled her fingers tighter on the camera. It looked… so easy for her. For Melia, it was easy to find a pokemon that she liked. It was difficult to convince them. They liked her but only Hapi had ever really enjoyed her company for particularly long. Even the sewaddle aside, she could feel the eyes on her back, on her side, all watching her and whispering. Her own pokeballs shook with something unreadable. Buneary for his part didn't seem impressed, but that didn't mean much. Buneary hated most everything. And he was watching. With disdain, of course, but his eyes were intent, curious.

Interested.

Her heart ached for a moment, Melia realized because for the life of her she couldn't understand _why_. Something in her, the second she had truly gotten a good look at Aya, had burned. Something in her had cast _doubt_ , was certain of something alien, something _other_.

Something in her whispered, _that is not a person. That is a force. That is nature._

 _That is not a human. That is not a pokemon. That is a concept made flesh._

And she hadn't been able to quiet the voice fast enough to really disagree.

But she had to. It wasn't right to think those things of a person, of someone who was more than willing to follow along and help her out despite their lack of time together. It wasn't right to think so terribly of a possible new friend.

But she couldn't _stop._

She lifted the camera, loosened it between her fingers as the sewaddle crawled along to the edge of her freer fingers. She lifted the camera and-

 _Click!_

Aya turned her head to the sight of the flash.

Melia grinned, putting the thoughts away somewhere else where they could belong. "You were supposed to say cheese!"

"I'm supposed to do a lot of things," the girl replied, voice dry but mouth twitching with a barely controlled smile. "Come on let's do one together."

Melia's face grew warm. "Really?"

Aya nodded, a rapid clip of a movement. That was how she moved, Melia realized. There were few wasted movements, there was barely a pause. Even when embarrassed, even being teased, Ayame moved like she had practiced each part of herself into automatic. It was too fluid. Especially on someone who looked ten at best. Or maybe it was just directed at her. Venam and Ren didn't seem to get such a stiff stance. Or she was overthinking it. "It'll be fun," she said with a small smile. "Cameras don't work too well at home. We get about ten photo opportunities a year."

"They don't?" She shuffled next to the smaller girl, who rebalanced the sewaddle to clamber down back to chew on her sock.

"Too much spectral interference. Ghosts often like to photobomb." Aya grinned a bit, helping Melia lift the camera a little higher. Then she paused. "Miss? Could you help us?"

"You know how to flatter too," the woman said with a laugh, but she did so anyway.

"Cheese!" Melia let her lips move smoothly into a smile, and Ayame laughed outright beside her. And that was the moment the camera caught: two kids smiling like they were having the time of their lives together.

* * *

"So did you find anything?"

As she spoke, Ayame waved farewell to the strange woman, Mars, who had deposited a strange shining shard and the sewaddle into Ayame's care before disappearing out of the cave. She turned back to Melia, who was shaking her head even as she tried to look a little closer.

"The picture kept blurring but that was about it." Melia leaned to press her fingers over the grooves of the ruins and within a few careful presses, the wall cracked and fell to pieces, causing Melia to fall face first to the ground.

Aya leaped over, which thankfully nobody saw. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" Melia sat up and slowly patted her shirt free of dirt as best as she could. "Just my pride… I didn't think I was that heavy."

"Guess that wasn't supposed to happen." Aya made her way over to peer into the gaping hole as tall as a basketball player. "Wow…"

"No kidding!" Melia leaned over her (Aya's eye totally didn't twitch about it.) to see. "Aevium's pretty new and all but still!" Aya saw the blonde's eyes sparkle. "We could be finding something totally new for the Floria landmass!" She grabbed Aya's arm to steady herself (Aya stiffened and made her shoulders fall, though Melia must have noticed there was no way not to.) to peer further into it. "See, after the Calamity fifty years back, all new areas opened up or were sealed away. It wouldn't surprise me if we found the ancient Garufa library somewhere. or the homes of a thousand legend young, hiding from the world! Dad is gonna love this!"

Melia raced ahead of her a few steps, which Aya allowed so she could return most of her pokemon properly. Soon only Eevee and Pich were at her heels, trotting along. A soft breeze lifted her bangs off of her forehead and they flopped back down in a heap. She blew them off again with a hot puff of air. Then she glanced at Melia, who hadn't noticed a thing. Her fingers twitched.

She had to tell her.

Even if she changed her decision, even if she chose to fight (and the thought of doing so ran up her veins and burned, burned, _burned_ ), the least she could do was tell her what was going to happen and what she knew.

Whatever was happening, Melia _should know._ If whoever was going to ruin the world, Team Xen or whatever, could still find her a threat for some reason. She needed to know, to tell people. The right people hopefully.

Pich nudged her foot and Ayame jolted. She hurried to catch up with Melia, who had turned the corner and disappeared from sight. Aya hurried to catch up.

The second she reached outside, her chest thudded to a halt. Her body trembled, fingers shaking, stomach chattering. There were stairs ground into the earth, a steady, deep set of grooves into the earth. She stared at them a moment, breathing hard through a weight deep in her bones.

"Keep it together, Aya," she murmured.

The feeling rumbled with each step she took until she reached the bottom where it settled into a sick pain at the balls of her feet. Melia was waiting there, practically singsong, as she settled a grey blanket to the dirt.

"Take a look!" she said with a grin. "Isn't it beautiful? I thought we could have lunch here!"

Aya smiled and nodded along obediently enough, but her eyes were caught on the great statue dwarfing Melia like Mt Silver to the world.

Arceus looked down at her like it could see every nook and cranny of her soul. And the flame inside of her flickered.

 _Keep it together,_ she told herself again, and sat down to eat. _Just a little longer._

She pretended her palms didn't scorch the dirt.

* * *

All the new discoveries and wonder in the world couldn't keep Melia from noticing the way the air felt just so wrong.

The fate butterflies being around certainly didn't help, fluttering their blue wings innocently as if something great and real wasn't before her. Like she didn't know how important today was.

Ayame had finally managed to turn away from the statue, but she looked like she had seen a ghost all the same. Melia continued to unpack the food like it wasn't happening. Every tale from Johto told of how the region let legendaries sleep wherever they wished, however they'd liked. They were given respect, offerings even, and in turn, its citizens were… a little less human. Their fires a little taller, their steps a little quieter, their eyes a little less dull.

Their smell a little too sharp.

Melia turned away from this thought as Ayame pulled out her cybernav and fiddled with it. "Tohjo wants to crown a monarch," she finally heard the girl say after a moment.

Melia frowned. "Isn't that the champion?" Aevium had no ruling party except for Jan, though most regions just went with keeping the champion in power alongside League government officials and in Alola's case, the Kahuna and the tapu. Though Alola was supposedly just a nicer version of Johto.

"Too much power for a pokemon trainer." Aya's response was absent, bored, exhausted. Like she'd heard the debate before, or worse, been asked the question despite being way too young to feel the importance of it. Still, Melia figured she knew something. "Though a trainer's likely going to do it. They need a politician."

"So, who? Lance? Clair, Blue?" Melia leaned closer. "Anyone you know?"

"Hah." The last sentence had been a joke, but then again, Venam had mentioned yesterday that she had met the champion of Unova, aka someone who terrified the general population of Kalos and Kanto combined. She watched dark lips twitch with sorrow and mirth. "Probably Lance. Clair is too much of a loose cannon. Blue is a PR disaster. Pryce is too old, Morty will turn it down-" For so many reasons. "Whitney has the head for politics not the stomach. Falkner would die. Bugsy is too needed in the science division. Chuck will only leave Cianwood when he's dead. The only hope aside from Lance is Jasmine and she can't guarantee an heir like Lance can."

"None of Kanto's leaders could," Melia ventured.

Ayame shook her head. "They're too young, too old, or in Surge's case, too broken. Red refused the mantle of champion after he earned , the only free shots are Lorelei and Janine, but no heirs. Sabrina is close, but no one cares about her as a person. Lance already has at least three possible heirs. So that puts him into play."

Melia wrinkled her nose. "Sexist."

"That's life." Her voice was completely dismissive. "Traditions are trash sometimes." Her fingers flexed.

"I hope I'll be able to keep Aevium from coming even close to that," Melia said under her breath. Her face flushed as the enormity of those words smacked into her heart.

Aya was quiet as she picked at the plate of food Melia passed towards her. "Venam told me… you're going to be a gym leader too now?"

Melia nodded, chewing, eyes low. "It was dad's idea. He pushed me to train while I was studying. He said I'd be good at it. And they accepted me. but… but it's scary. I've never been away from him for so long, you know? Grand Dream City is huge and there's so many people and I know I'm going to get lost. And I don't even know if I can do it… but he believes in me too, so I…" She stopped, face turning a bright crimson. "Sorry! I just… I didn't mean to spill all of that… I haven't even mentioned any of that to _Venam._ They'll probably laugh and say I'll be fine, but they're staying right here. Ren's got the lab and Venam's got her gym even though she hates it. I… Sorry. That was a lot, wasn't it?"

"A little." Aya's agreement was perfectly calm. "But everyone's got secrets. Even me."

"Yeah?" Melia lifted her head, eyes sparkling, hunger in her throat for an answer that Jan hadn't dared to think of giving. "Like what?"

Aya straightened up in her seat and held out her hand. As Melia watched, soft rainbow light flickered up over her open palm, licking and snapping before her eyes.

No, not light. _Fire._

"I am Ayame Kitsunebi," she said, looking Melia in the eyes and daring her to turn away. "I am the carrier of Ho-oh's lingering will. And you're in a lot of danger, Melia, and I don't know why. Someone wants you to save the world. But someone asked me to do the same thing."

She closed her hand and turned it down, moving to pet her two pokemon, who were chewing at her crumbs. "I was asked to look after you. I don't know from what or why. And judging by the look on your face, you don't either."

"I-" Melia's eyes darted back and forth, fingers twitching for her pokeballs. "I- of course I don't! I'm an ordinary girl!"

"So was I." Aya's lips thinned and the flame danced higher. "So was I. I'm sorry, but you deserved to know."

"How do _you_ know?" Melia demanded, rising to her feet. "How can you possibly know?"

"Team Xen tried to drown me, that's how!" Her voice only went up an octave, but that octave was enough to shake the leaves.

The vivilion fluttered and Melia tried to look away from that abyssal red, that sincere, wild, voidal red. She failed.

"You're not lying."

"Why would I lie?"

"I don't know," Melia admitted. "I don't know. I wanted to hope! I-I don't-" She stopped, lowered her hands. "I don't want this."

Aya nodded slowly, not slowly enough. "Then we need to go now."

"Too late," intoned a high-pitched little voice. A pink feline creature appeared, seemingly from nowhere in existence to alive. It dropped something silver onto Ayame's lap. "They are coming."

"They?" Both girls echoed, too baffled by what the creature said than realizing there was a mew speaking in their heads.

"The X people," replied the mew. And then it was gone, leaving the two of them alone with the pokemon.

And that was when the entire clearing _trembled, rattled,_ groaned. The vivilion flew away in terror.

Melia wished suddenly, very hard, that she could go with them.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** So how about V11 everybody?_

Haha, yeah that's where I've been, along with trying to decide how I wanted to do this fic from here on as I replayed. This end reveal was going to be much, much later. But I realized there really was no point. Considering it's only one of the many, many important details that I get to do with her and there's only so much I can do with it at this point because she's trying very hard to behave herself. For now of course.

Also, the fic has gone up to M early! Because of the reveal, and because of just what it's going to do to the story from here on in. The summary and title have been changed to reflect that! Also... v11. My god the things it gives me to play with. I'm very excited friends and already squeeing for v12.

Regarding LGP and LGE: I'll be using some of the movesets? Not much, but mostly on Pich, as right now he's a sweet but useless little mouse. Otherwise, just assume we're going with USUM. Which does mean Duskanroc. Just give me time.

Next chapter: the one we've all been waiting for! Or at least I have. Please leave a review and I'll see everyone next time! Thanks for sticking with me!

Active Team

 _Eevee_ (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

 _Isaiah_ (brionne) Torrent, lvl 20 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

 _Cheshire_ (swoobat) Unaware, lvl 19 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

 _Trinity_ (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 22 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

 _Red_ (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 19 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

 _Sadie_ (rockruff) Own Tempo, lvl 18 Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Bite, Rock Throw

 _Pich_ (pichu) Lightningrod, lvl 9, Moves: Thundershock, Charm, Double Kick, Sweet Kiss

Borrowing

 _Puff_ (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	14. Chapter 14 - Promise of a New Future

_Warnings: Burns, shadow pokemon, thievery, discussion of injuries._

* * *

 _Chapter Fourteen - Promise of a New Future_

Ayame did not have time to waste thinking. She grabbed Melia by the arm and pulled her behind some trees. Just in case. In case they got far enough into the cave, in case they needed to sneak past. So many "just in cases" she was feeling just a little homesick.

"That was Mew," Melia suddenly said. "That was Mew, wasn't it?"

Ayame thought and thought and remembered feline limbs thin as her big toe and a tail the length of ten bendy straws. "Yeah," she said, pushing the thoughts away. "I bet it's one of the only ones left."

"And that thing it gave you…" Aya ignored the eyes the best she could. "What was it?"

"Suppressor," she said, remembering it clutched in her other hand and hurrying to put it on. "It's will take longer for my skin will melt if it starts to rain, or that I'll burn your hand off."

Melia didn't jump away, only tightened her grip. "You'll _what_."

"I can't control the powers too well yet," she said instead of repeating herself. She still didn't dare to look at Melia. It was a risk. She couldn't look at her and see what she was sure would be there. That kaleidoscope of feelings that people had when they met a real live Avatar. "Haven't had them for long."

"You weren't exactly burning me before."

"Takes more effort than you think." A smell wafted over the air, wet leaves and fur. Ayame put a finger to her lips as something thudded to the ground. It sniffed, padding closer and then passed them towards where they had been.

Melia gave her a firm tug on the arm and mouthed, the food.

Of course. Aya leaned forward at the sound of ripping, tearing, crunching. If they were going to have to hold it off, the least she could do was see what it was.

At the sight of the pokemon she leaned back in surprise. "Absol," she breathed. Beside her, Melia tensed up in fear.

Absol were always called heralds of disaster. They were always on that fringe an instant before the beginning and would observe until the end. That didn't mean they caused those disasters, but they always knew. They were forced to know, to feel the inevitable fall of something. A group of people, a dynasty, a landmark. No one knew what specifically drew them to specific disasters but they went to them anyway.

She was almost tempted to catch it, but that was a risk, especially since she had no idea what had brought it here.

Except for the X people… Xen maybe?

Aya felt the trembling start in her body before Melia's grip tightened on her. She had so many questions to ask them, like why they had kidnapped her mother, what they were going to do… and why were they acting now? So many questions, and she was pretty damn sure they'd give her no answers.

"You have your suitcase?" she said out of the corner of her mouth. Melia nodded. "All right. Let's do this. be ready to get out whatever it is that's in there. We need to get back to the train."

"What about everyone else?"

"We'll work on that." Of course _she_ was worried about that. But most of them were trainers or had pokemon themselves. They couldn't just protect them blindly from a threat they didn't know about. "You're the one in the most danger, Melia. Remember? I was told to look after you today. That means you're in more danger than they are."

What she didn't say was that everyone else would make great hostages because most decent human beings didn't like watching other people suffer or to die for them to live.

"Who told you to look after me? And besides, you have… fire! And things." By now, Aya was determinedly dragging Melia into the cave as she spoke, the blonde girl's voice getting steadily louder. "You can just stop… whoever they are!"

Aya did not turn her head. She refused to look her current charge in the eye. "That's easy for you to say. I'm a novice trainer with powers I barely reign in, hearing aids that spark on a good day and you to look after."

"I have pokemon I'm not entirely helpless."

Aya swallowed her anger, pain and the creeping memory of trembling bricks over her head, someone falling down where the trains would run. She would not dump that on Melia, she would not dump that on a person she wasn't like these people but god did she want to scream. She wanted to save these people too! She wanted to help them! But she couldn't do both! She wasn't that good! This was why she had wanted to leave, this was why she had wanted to-

Melia suddenly let out a sound of pain and without thinking, Aya jerked away. "Sorry! Sorry!" She was still moving forward, tossing rawst berries and bandages behind her. "Just… just stay in there okay?! I'll get everyone in there first, just stay away from me!"

She was going to be sick, she had hurt someone again, she was going to be _sick._

Something soft nuzzled against her cheek, causing her to slow to a walk and then stop. Her breath hitched and Aya sniffled, trying to control her breathing, her racing heart. Eevee pressed against her cheek again, still settled on her shoulder. "Thanks," she mumbled, rubbing her face. "Just panicked. Sorry." _Get a grip, idiot. You're going to be a kimono girl aren't you? They live with fear. Their legendary could up and eat them because it's the wrong outfit. Don't stop now. You are beyond that fear. Keep it together._

But was she really?

She made herself take another step and then another, until she was nearly back at a normal walking speed. Then, a chill shot up her spine as a hand closed around her wrist. Aya jerked her hand forward and away but the hand only tightened.

"Don't you run from me!" Melia's voice was almost too loud again, and Aya looked back to see a stern face in those rosy cheeks, the blond hair befitting of Unovan cupids and depictions of angels. It was ruined by the scowl on her face but then, Aya had seen much more terrifying things before. "You don't get to just, to just say all that, _do all of that_ , and just walk away."

 _Watch me_ almost came out of her own throat until Aya swallowed it and looked her dead in the eye. "It's safer if you stay a distance away. So you can get your pokemon out."

"Safer for you or me?"

Aya did not answer that.

Melia fixed her with a determined pair of blue eyes. "I'm not letting you just up and go into whatever that is on your own. We told each other deep secrets. So we're friends now. And friends don't leave each other behind."

Her bag suddenly felt a whole lot heavier on her shoulder. The words hurt something in her ribs.

 _She's honest,_ sang someone in her heart. _All the time, all the possibilities, she keeps that look in her eyes. That look that begs for a miracle. For a future. You can trust her, Aya-chan._

 _Well if Su-kun says it, it has to be true._

Aya closed her eyes and waited for there to be some silence in her head. "I can't promise anything," she finally said."I don't know if we'll be able to help everyone here. I was told to look after you."

"That's fine," Melia said with an easy grin. "I'll just cover them instead. I've got a full team too you know!"

Aya shifted at the thought, words rising up in her throat. Then there was a very loud scream. They both turned and Aya took off again, calling, "Then you'd better keep up!" as she went.

Melia watched her go before laughing a little. "She's trying to act all grown up," she said to buneary, who only muttered something in reply. Probably something rude. Still, her heart was a little warmer knowing the girl wasn't actually going to leave her here.

 _We'll make this work together,_ she decided, hurrying after the smaller girl. Aya was knelt by an older woman was huddled on the ground. Her dress was ripped, hat askew, and blood dripped from three scratches on her arm. Aya was looping bandages around it, speaking so low Melia couldn't hear her until she was right next to her.

"We've gotta get her inside, just behind the wall."

Melia felt her wrist twinge in pain, but she nodded, leaning over herself. "Ma'am, can you walk?"

"Ye-Yes," the woman quavered as she spoke, clutching her hat. She pushed herself up. "it's just.. my furfrou… he was from my son, my son gave him to me and they just _took_ him like yesterday's trash!"

"Well you did leave it out for anyone with a good net, what were we gonna do?"

A man strolled out, decked in blacks and reds with an X gouged into one side of the chest. Aya made herself not snort. Three others came up behind him and at his side was what at first glance looked like a meowth. Moving slowly on all fours, it did not growl or sniff or paw at the dirt. It was the most uncatlike meowth she had ever seen.

From her hood, eevee started to growl.

"We're not done taking things from that old bag," drawled the first man, lips quirked into a smug smile. "The people here are so easy."

Melia led the woman back as quickly as possible into the cave, leaving Aya alone with the four people looming closer.

"That girl in the back fits the description," said the second adult, putting two fingers to her left ear. "This is Xen Grunt Leon, reporting in. Target Melia has been spotted. I repeat, target has been spotted. We're initializing capture protocol."

Aya planted her feet. "I'm not gonna let you," she said quietly, and she moved to a crouch, which wasn't very far all things considered.

They laughed at her. Her eye twitched. "Just a kid," said the first, who looked down at his meowth. "This'll be faster than the old lady. Get 'er Meowsie."

The cat lunged for her head and Aya lifted her arm and swiped, throwing it to the ground.

The man whistled. 'Looks like we've got ourselves a badass on our hands here, everyone! Willing to fight a Shadow Pokemon with her bare hands."

 _Like eevee…_ Aya chewed her lip. Did eevee come from them? Or…? No, she couldn't think about that now, two of those people were charging. Aya dug her feet into the dirt and pushed off, swinging her fist into the approaching woman's jaw. She _flew_ backwards, howling in pain and Ayame took another step forward to swing at the other. He dodged to the side, laughing and Ayame had to face forward again, leaping to the side of the scratching meowth. Her wrist snapped out and she chopped. It hissed and latched onto her arm, glow rapidly going from purple to a dark red as it tried to sink its teeth into her-

She socked it off and it squealed agony even as its tongue licked her blood from its teeth.

"You're not just gonna be able to knock out a shadow pokemon with your bare hands, kid," spat the grunt. "'Specially not my Meowsie. I've had her since she was a baby. She's tough as nails."

Aya had to pause to breathe, to blink away the sudden red filling her own vision. "And you turned her into a Shadow Pokemon? Do you have _any brain cells? Any at all?"_

She inhaled as quick as she could and turned around to the sound of a very loud screech.

"Let go of me!"

Aya turned to help, assuming that was Melia. Then her eyes went comically wide as she watched Melia's trembling arms lift up and up and _up_ -

And the grunt was sent screaming over the trees.

Aya blinked for a moment. " _Wild,"_ she whispered and leaped to the side of the tiny, panting cat. It didn't stop to even land really, chasing her as she danced around the way up, blocking their path.

"Just stay still and get hit!" The man's face was twisting, lip chewed red.

Ayame ignored him as Melia made it to her side. "Get the suitcase," ordered the older girl, calling out her buneary and an eevee of her own. Unlike Aya's, its expression was perfectly clear and bright. "Use the code 6489. I'll hold them off. Whatever's in there should help us!"

Aya almost asked why she couldn't do it but moved to obey anyway. Whatever it was, it was probably more surprising if she could use it. Her fingers fumbled the code a moment but the second time she entered it in the suitcase popped open. Said case would have seemed empty if it weren't for the strange, child-sized glove that ran the length of a human arm. The fingers were covered in metal and the top of the hand had a strange, circular cover.

"Put it on!" Melia called. There was something odd in her voice, something _painful_. "It's a Snag Machine! Use it!"

As if she was going to do anything else. She slid the device over her arm and it unfolded like vines with blossoms, latching onto her digits so fluidly if she didn't know how dark her skin was, Aya would almost be foolish enough to believe it had always been that way. Pich sparked at it, but that gave no response whatsoever.

 _Welcome user,_ it chimed right inside her brain. _Please bear with the initialization process._

Well that wasn't comforting in the slightest. If she wasn't so used to the hearing aids she'd already had that would have sent her into some kind of a tizzy mentally, rather than physically when something stabbed into the top of her hand. She grumbled in pain, which was the extent of it really for her. She'd had a little bit worse than that. Just a little though. _User acknowledged._

And the world opened up.

She'd never been able to see ghosts, mind. They were all over and she felt them like an awful uncontrolled itch. But she'd been able to hear and feel them, until the accident, including the ones that trailed after her like will-o-wisps on autumn nights. Now her eyes were flooded with purple lights, dancing at grunts' pokeballs, all around her eevee and the meowth positively shining with it. Her eevee was much dimmer, but there was a shade of red at the edges.

Eevee hopped from her hood and crashed into the meowth, snarling and bristling. She yipped with fervor. purple shrouding her tiny body so thoroughly it was hard for Aya to see the original form.

"Eevee!" she called. "You've gotta calm down!"

Eevee barked in reply, which was more than the pokemon had done before, but it wasn't saying much. Aya grimaced and grabbed a pokeball from her bag. It smacked into the Meowth and sucked it in.

"Eevee!" Aya called as the pokemon stared unwavering eyes at the shaking ball. "To Melia! Quick!"

"I'm fine!" Melia called through the grunts of battle. "Focus on the meowth!"

Ayame had to not roll her eyes but watched the ball go still and the grunt's face drop like a stone to the ground. Eevee pawed anxiously.

"M-Meowsie?" His face wobbled, tears rose from his eyes. "I raised her myself… I hatched her myself." Aya felt pity gurgle in her stomach. He glared at her. "Give her back!"

Aya picked up the ball as it disappeared to her pc, or more accurately, to her parents. She'd have to send a message to her dads to explain things as soon as she and Melia were safe. "You shouldn't have tortured it into a Shadow, you idiot." She kept the pity at bay, not even flinching at his tears. She had to keep it together."

He stared at her, jaw agape. Then he turned tail and ran.

Aya turned back to the opponents trying to box Melia into the mouth of the cave. Then she sighed. "Pich?"

Her pichu squeaked.

"Thunder Wave." She hesitated for an instant. "On the grunts."

Pich, being too young to _quite_ understand the implications, obeyed. THe grunts collapsed into twitching heaps. Aya moved over to examine their belts, their two pokemon turning back in confusion before Melia's pokemon knocked them out. Seeing two pokeballs glowing purple, she reached and plucked them off. Tossing each ball out one at a time, she chewed her lip.

"Eevee." Eevee trotted to her site, growling all the while at the new arrivals. "Get them."

Eevee obeyed with a high pitched squeak of what could have been joy. The Snag Machine gave a hum against her hand in acknowledgement.

She was so _tired._ As Melia made it to her side, looking a little worse for wear, all she could do was imagine how much worse it could go.

"I'll take them, and then we'll escape," she said, more like sighed. "Okay?"

Melia hesitated a moment. Then she reached out and squeezed her shoulder.

Aya failed to smile.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** _ Oops, Aya burnt Melia. Don't worry, she's fine. But Aya's not. This is only a couple of days after she saw an entire ship of people disappear. And not to mention all sorts of other wriggly things. Oh well. Next time: Zetta. Oh boy Zetta! Thanks for reading!

Active Team

Eevee (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

Isaiah (brionne) Torrent, lvl 20 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

Cheshire (swoobat) Unaware, lvl 19 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

Trinity (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 22 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

Red (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 19 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

Sadie (rockruff) Own Tempo, lvl 18 Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Bite, Rock Throw

Pich (pichu) Lightningrod, lvl 10, Moves: Thundershock, Charm, Double Kick, Sweet Kiss

Borrowing

Puff (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	15. Chapter 15 - A Smatter of Yellow

_Warnings: Coping mechanisms, panic and anxiety attacks_

* * *

 _Chapter Fifteen - A Smatter of Yellow_

The forest somehow seemed a lot bigger than it had been on the first way through. Maybe it was all the grunts throwing pokemon at them. Maybe it was all the ways this could go wrong.

Aya had to guess it was the screaming pokemon though.

Melia was muttering as they kept moving forward, things that Aya didn't really understand. She couldn't focus on it. She could only focus on throwing ball after ball, on Sadie the rockruff rushing, rushing to fight. Eevee being interested in the going's on also helped, if only because it proved Shadow Pokemon being created were a slow, painful death. An eevee should not be bashing things into an opposing tree. And she was so red at points, Ayame had to squint to see her paws. That was a good sign, right? If they kept going to hyper mode that was good right? She couldn't remember all that well.

She couldn't remember… she couldn't… oh crap. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. She needed to breathe, needed to keep it together. What could she do to keep it together? What did she have that would do that? What could she _do_?

Aya stopped walking, causing Melia to nearly bump into her head. "Are you okay?" Melia said, looking down at her nose. Aya did not answer, lips twitching on one side. Her hands were trembling.

 _Oh god, she's scared._

As soon as the words fell into Melia's mind, guilt built up in her throat. _God she's twelve, of course she's scared. Johto is weird, it's not_ heartless, _and she's only been training in this region for a few days, she's probably been nothing but scared and here we are with a team of kidnappers after me and she's just… an afterthought. she probably thinks she's going to die no wonder those powers of hers won't work._

Aya pulled away from her once more, but as she did, Melia caught the faintest sound from her mouth. Aya kept moving away but it wasn't like the brisk run she'd had when she'd burnt Melia's hand (which was suspiciously pain-free now), or their quick walk they'd been using to get past all these Team Xen people. It was almost like a hopping step, one someone would make when trying to get their balance.

The sound came again, still quiet. Sadie the rockruff hopped after her, the pichu at her shoulder losing his balance as he tried to keep up.

Another sound, timid, tiny. Then before Melia's eyes, Aya's shoulders eased and she spun to the side, moving towards the next opponent with quick steps. She made another sound as she moved, looking about until she caught sight of Melia again. Then her face flushed and she stopped. Aya looked away, hands falling to rest at her side.

"Sorry," she mumbled. "Mom taught me to, to sing when I started losing control of my thoughts… I should have done it earlier and we'd be out of here by now."

Melia stared at the other girl for a moment, seemingly at a loss for words. Then she smiled. "I wanna hear it when we get out of here, all right?"

Aya blinked once, then again. Then she nodded. "Right, sure. Just don't laugh. I worked hard on it."

"If you stop holding the Garbodor over my head I won't laugh at your bad singing," Melia promised.

"I wouldn't hold that thing anywhere near me let alone over you."

They both looked at each other and laughed. This was the worst time to be saying these things, but also in a way, the best.

 _You must kill your heart,_ intoned the soft voice of the ancient giant in Aya's head.

Aya stopped laughing, but the smile remained on her face.

That's right. There was no reason to panic, to lose focus. If she wanted to make it out of here, doing horrible things, she would just have to kill her heart and work with the world that flowed around her. Easier said than done of course, but she had to try.

A new path, a way out, would only form when she willed it.

"Keep it together and kill your heart," she repeated out loud.

And once again, Melia heard none of it.

* * *

Picking up the cacnea's pokeball, Aya watched it disappear and the horror growing over the person's face was starting to hurt less. She probably ought to be worried about that.

"That was _my_ pokemon."

"And you tortured it," Aya said without stopping.

the grunt sniffled, their eyes smarting with tears. "I hope Zetta takes yours, you stupid brat!"

"I hope they get a better name first." She reached into her bag for another potion and set to work. The sun was beginning to set. Melia moved closer to her, offering her own before she could. Aya smiled and took it.

"They said whoever it was was named Zetta?"

"Yep."

Melia screwed up her face. "Lame. That's like, a number or something. Couldn't they have thought of anything better?"

Aya snorted. "Nerd."

"Hell yeah." Melia flexed an arm. "I'm a professor's daughter after all."

Aya smiled a little bit, bit her tongue just a tiny bit more, then led on, the thicket of trees starting to die down once more. "We're getting close to the train."

Melia leaned over her shoulder and then on it for balance. Aya, to her credit didn't even falter. "There's a couple of trucks in the way, we'd have to climb them or leap over them to get out of here. I don't think I can do a repeat of that throw I did earlier."

"I might be able to carry you over." Aya turned in the direction Melia was looking at, catching glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. She made herself turn to look at it more closely. "Actually scratch that, that's low enough I could get us over pretty easily. But I don't want to risk it." She pointed at the lake. Something seemed to… stick to the air, pulsing. It burned red over the lake, cracks trailing at its 'edges' and breaking the air itself. It curled inward, beating like a heart at rest.

"What the heck is that?" Melia's voice had dropped to a whisper.

"How would I know that?"

"You're the one who said you were carrying that guy's will or whatever!"

"Yes that doesn't mean i remember being that bird! Or that I know what that is!"

"Boy you two are pretty bad at this escape for your life thing, aren't you?"

Both of them turned and threw a ball each. A gleaming teddy bear flew straight into a bird and Sadie clamped her jaws around a ghost. It squealed and flew free, shaking itself and hiding behind the oversized crow. It cawed at them from the shoulder of a man with dark hair. Unlike the woman, whose eyes were drooping low on her face. Her entire body seemed to radiate disappointment at the very least.

"Is good for us yes?" said the man, who was smiling, a wee bit loopily. "We capture girl, yes? And sell her off?"

Melia blanched. "S-Sell me?"

"I thought that we had stopped trafficking children for Locke experimentation," Aya muttered, raising her arm. She spoke a single word and it was nothing Melia had heard before. But Sadie seemed to get it anyway, dashing for the ghost again.

"We're not selling her, don't be dumb Eli." The woman made a sound of dissent as the ghost tried to dodge. Aya whistled. "The boss needs her for something."

"Needs her death, yes!" the man agreed.

Melia had started to back away at this point, her bear dodging rapid pecks and squeaking rage.

Aya swung out and her pichu raced forward and leaped into a tackle, sparking as he did so. The murkrow screeched.

"Unfair!" shouted the man, his fingers curling around a second ball.

Melia ground her teeth so hard Aya could have probably heard it even without her hearing aids. "You're attacking a couple of kids while complaining about fair!"

Aya only _laughed_. "Rock Throw!" Her dog kicked a rock with a paw, knocking the murkrow out of the sky with a squawk. "You want fair?" she said, and Melia glanced at her, at the red blazing out her eyes. "You want fair? You're on the wrong planet!"

"Don't I know it?" grumbled the woman, recalling her shuddering misdreavus. The crow at the man's feet tried to rise, but Sadie knocked it to the side with little more than a vague tackle. "Geez kid, what did they feed you?"

Aya grinned, but Melia was reminded more of a feral lycanroc Venam had been made to subdue in her first few months as a gym leader. It had bucked free of every trainer that had gotten close, and nearly bitten off a man's hand. "You'll hate the answer to that," she said, not even flinching at the sight of a milotic, small at only five feet long but still a _milotic_. Her pichu merely growled, the high sound a little lower, fur growing darker against the slowly setting sun. Or maybe that just was the sun.

The man said nothing, eyes narrowing as he tossed out what looked like a shining rock before it was immediately encased in more stone.

"Melia," Aya said, eyes forward. "Get around these two and try to see that thing in the sky. I'll meet you."

Melia hesitated. "But…"

"I'll be fine." Aya's smile was, if possible, sharper than before. "The sooner we can get this done, the sooner you're out of here."

Melia hesitated a moment more, but then she went. And Aya turned on her opponents.

"Now's the time for you to run away kid," said the woman, Sharon? Sharleen? Something like that. "Your charge is in better hands now, you don't have to fight."

Aya regarded them for a moment, Pich and Sadie crouched by her feet. Then she let out a yipping sound. Almost like the bark of a dog. She pointed.

Pich darted across the earth and smacked into both pokemon like a pinball. They fell, quivering and sparking. But the water serpent rose, firing weak pale blue lights that would someday be a real ice beam. Sadie snarled as one struck Pich, sending the baby yelping and squeaking for cover. He kicked another two stones, smacking the minior square in the eye. Aya knelt to pick up the mouse and let eevee trot to view again. The pokemon snarled, teeth bared.

"I don't have to fight?" Aya repeated. "Of course I don't have to. Does it ever occur to anyone in this place that I fight because I want to?" Color flickered into her irises, multicolored, monstrous, unforgiving. "I'm here because I _enjoy this._ "

Of course she was scared and trembling. Of course she did not want to be here, to be involved in this. She had other things to do. But she was already here, and she would never escape now that they knew her face.

So if she was going to be known anyway, what reason was there to stop?

Answer: none.

And, if she was honest down to her soul, Ayame knew that was what scared her the most.

* * *

Melia clambered up the hill to see a man with his hands outstretched towards the great big… thing in the sky. This close up, it looked like a bruise, ugly and red. He didn't acknowledge her at first. Then he sighed, turning his gaze. "Man, what the hell do they feed you kids? Power cereal? You shoulda been tied up in a truck by now."

Melia managed to scowl. "My friends taught me real well how to be difficult."

"I've kinda noticed, toots." The man turned to look at her. His eyes were the same color as her own, only darker, his expression drier, despite the softness of his face. "Huh… so that's what you look like?"

"Were you expecting someone taller?" Melia said, raising an eyebrow and pretending her legs weren't feeling like wobbly sausages.

"Wasn't expecting much of anything." He tossed two pokeballs up and down. "And I'm severely disappointed anyway. Go figure. Now be a good girl and come quietly or when I'm done with you, I'll make that tough gal of yours beg for you to put a bullet between her eyes."

Melia threw out her eevee and buneary and straightened. "Just you make me, Zetty."

The man laughed. "Oh you do think you're clever. Oh well." He released two pokemon of his own, a cyndaquil and a grimer that glowed a distasteful purple sheen, even to Melia's eyes. "I've always loved making clever people realize how stupid they are."

"Covet!" Melia barked and her eevee shot forward like a bullet. Zetta only whistled and his grimer slid through the grass and took the hit like it was little more than a friendly tap. Then it gurgled and smacked eevee down to the ground. "Frustration!"

"Is that what you're feeling right now?" he said as the buneary sprang to life, ignoring every ember pelted at it to knock the cyndaquil nearly into the water with a single blow. "Cause I mean, can't say I blame ya. Your life's all topsy turvy now." One of his pokeballs started to shake and Zetta tapped it with a finger. "Naw you, we don't need your mess."

Melia wanted to fume, but settled for releasing Hapi, who waggled her finger hands at the Grimer with distaste. "What the hell do you even want with me? I'm just a simple girl, that's all!"

"Is that what your dad told you?" Zetta shrugged and let out another whistle, sending buneary sprawling into the dirt. "Man did he have you fooled."

"Shut up about my dad!"

Hapi exploded with light, sending the lot of pokemon back. The little egg continued to glow, brighter and more furious than ever. She screeched her fury, rocks forming and shining a sheer, unforgiving blue and crashing into Zetta's pokemon. When the light faded, a trill filled the clearing and Melia watched as a golden, upright bird floated down before her very eyes.

"Hapi?" she whispered.

Hapi chirped, floating to her side and nosing her face.

"How?" Melia said, looking her up and down. "Dad said you had another year, at, at least."

Hapi merely nosed her face once more and turned to Zetta, who only twitched his lips.

"Well," he said. "That's annoying. Grimer, Gunk Shot."

Grimer drew up from where it'd been a puddle in the grass, swelling up to the size of an exercise ball. And just when it opened its mouth, a ball smacked into it, sucking it in and closing with a click.

Aya hurried to her side, her rockruff barking loudly and snarling at Zetta. "Close call that," she said, catching the ball as it flew to her fingers and disappeared. Her eyes were positively aglow now. "You okay?" Melia nodded, slumping a little. "Cool, cool. Stand back now, okay? I'll take care of this. You make sure your garbodor buddy is keeping the misery duo busy."

Melia nodded, glancing at Zetta once more. He stared back at her and his eyes glittered, filled with possibly… disappointment?

That wasn't any of her business. Her business was getting them out of here.

That was what Melia kept telling herself.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** _ We're back! With a little Zetta, and some battling! Not much battling, the bigger battles need more coverage. Anyway, I have a lot of plans being set into motion. I'm aiming to have us back in Gearan by next chapter, and into the Sheridan chunk in... 6 chapters max! This has gone on much too long in my opinion. So... let's go go go!

 _Active Team_

 _Eevee_ (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

 _Isaiah_ (brionne) Torrent, lvl 20 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

 _Cheshire_ (swoobat) Unaware, lvl 19 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

 _Trinity_ (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 22 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

 _Red_ (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 19 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf

 _Sadie_ (rockruff) Own Tempo, lvl 22 Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Bite, Rock Throw

 _Pich_ (pichu) Lightningrod, lvl 12, Moves: Thundershock, Charm, Double Kick, Sweet Kiss

 _Borrowing_

 _Puff_ (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	16. Chapter 16 - The Wingless Dragon

_Warning for violence, mostly non-graphic, cursing, death threats... also Pich. I should warn for Pich. Also pokemon-on-human violence. Kind of. Sort of. Yeah. Also scarring, another near-drowning._

* * *

 _Chapter Sixteen - The Wingless Dragon_

"Well, well," Zetta said, turning full attention to Aya, who only regarded him in return. "I'm pretty sure that's against the rules of battling."

"Anything is allowed in a fight," Aya says as he throws out an oddish, aimed right at her head. Cheshire explodes out from his ball and smacks it down with a wing, screeching provocations and soaring out overhead. "Especially considering I bet you know how to use that stupid thing in the sky and we don't. You have trucks of people and we don't. I'm pretty sure the balance is stacked in your way regardless. Too bad you just suck."

Zetta laughed and crossed his arms. "That machine of yours very much puts things in your favor." He watched her face as he continued. "Mind putting it away for me?"

"Yea," Aya said in the best imitation of a desert imaginable. "I do actually." She whistled and Cheshire dove, only to meet a hard helmet and beady green eyes. The creature flexed its legs and gave a rough shove, sending Cheshire back into the air.

"Nice one, Zepto," cooed his trainer, grinning at them. "We're sitting pretty with you, huh?" The creature growled underneath the helmet.

"Nerd," Melia whispered before she could stop herself, only to shriek as the… thing rushed towards her, perhaps towards the sound of her voice. Aya didn't even think. She rammed into the chimera with as much strength as she could muster, and threw it off course. It skidded across the grass, snarling and dragging its front foot deeper into the dirt to keep from splashing into the water.

Aya, for her part, only looked incensed. Melia swore she could see small embers flicker at the ends of her hair. "Learn to take a pot shot!" she snapped and yes, there it was, fire wrapping around her fingertips that was almost impossible to see in the setting sun. "Or a joke! High strung fuckboy!"

"We need to talk about you saying "fuck" on a regular basis," Melia said with a face that looked somewhat similarly disgusted and horrified. "You're twelve."

"I've said much worse." She rolls her shoulders, hearing them crack like the wings she sometimes wishes were there. "All the weird things in my life give me a get out of jail free card on saying fuck. Now get to somewhere remotely defense worthy."

"What are you going to do?"

"Get this guy off of us, what else?" Aya raised her hands, daring the growling monster to try. She had a shadow eevee, seen an absol up close for the fifth time in her life, had to reveal her even the bare bones of her secret to who equaled a purity sue, she wasn't afraid of _shit_ at this point, especially not a pokemon she couldn't identify. "I know what I'm doing Melia, get ready to run off."

She did not, in fact, know what she was doing. But it was fight or flight at this point and lest she start literally flying, fighting was just as good.

Melia, unfortunately, kept picking up pieces of her spine to act like she had a backbone. "And leave you behind with this guy? No thanks!"

"Which one of us knows how to fight? Because I don't think it's you." Aya licked sweat from her mouth. "Go!" She refused to take her eyes off of blondie over there, who didn't exactly scream threat, but he still didn't feel right. It was like her nose and eyes were getting two different chain emails.

Zetta smiled. "Well well, trouble in paradise." He whistled and the Zepto creature (was that a nickname or a name she could not tell) leaped for Aya this time, crashing and slamming its rusty helmet into her throat. She wheezed and lifted up a knee but it held firm, three toed feet gouging into her shoulders. "Let me make this easy for you girls now, because blondie over there is living up to her stereotype of one brain cell to rub together. Put down the snag machine and leave, and I'll let you live. This time."

Aya raised an eyebrow, struggling to lift it. "What if I refuse?"

"I let Zepto knock you into my little Rifty friend over there. I know which one I choose. Do you?"

Aya took a deep breath and started to push, blood seeping from her arms and thighs and calves as she pushed Zepto slowly up into the air and rolled him off. "How about I just kill you instead?" she panted, managing to glare. "That sounds smarter."

Both of them stared at her for a moment. Aya didn't turn her gaze away, she made herself look and look at the expression ripping up Zetta's face, like he'd never heard someone say something so matter-of-factually before to him. Then, as if moved by instinct alone, Zetta snapped his fingers.

The ugly red bruise in the sky let out a singular _pulse._ The hair at the back of Aya's neck stood on end and her mouth went dry. The bruise then twisted and jerked, wind rising in slow, soft tumbles that picked up, scooping around her boots and dousing the embers in her fingers..

Zetta laughed, but it was shaky, wet, scrambling for composure. "You talk awful tough when it's just me. But this'll set you straight. Don't say I didn't give you an out." He raised a hand. "Rifty! Eat her!"

There was nothing at first, only the wind, only a slow drag at her heels. Then the bruise _groaned and creaked,_ shaking like a battered fence. Aya scrambled for her pokeballs and Pich leaped into her hood with a squeak, leaving eevee staring at Zetta with empty eyes.

And like jumpluff in the wind, Aya was in the air, soaring away from the ground. Melia leaped to catch her, her fingers closing around her ankle for a second-

Only to be ripped away as "Zepto" tackled her, helmet gouging into her cheek and chest into her arm. There was a loud _crack_ and she let go.

Aya's vision filled with red as Melia howled pain and the world was yanked away. And

She

Fell

Down.

And as she fell, Melia screamed her name.

* * *

The rift was not a quiet place.

The sea rocked against the rocks, pushing and shoving like kids out of line. A tree branch flung itself off and clattered to the grass, only to be picked up once more. A waterfall pushed and pushed, gushing and gushing as if to beat the rain that was drumming into the earth, onto her skin, on and on and on-

Like that day, when the whirlpools had filled her ears and she'd watched the stormy sky weep and mourn her and everything she loved and everyone she knew, the thunder reminding her _you will save them, you will save everything and all it will take is_ you.

This storm, she thought to herself once she opened her eyes, was like a baby rain shower in comparison. Well, she was trying to convince herself of that anyway.

Still, the rain sizzled and boiled and lashed at her skin and she pushed herself up to get as much of herself out of direct fire as possible.

Pich, buried against her throat, whimpered. _Smells funny,_ chimed in her ears, the once steady hum of her nearly perfect hearing aids dead as a doorstop and replaced with wild raw _noise_ , a multitude of voices heard and Pich's loudest, closest to her ears. _Dead, mum. Dead dead dead as old grass. Raw, hurt, red. All over, all all over._

Oh _hell._

Aya raised a soaking hand to stroke Pich's tiny back. "Ssh," she tried to say, and probably succeeded. She couldn't hear to tell what her voice was at the moment. She reached out and returned Sadie, however, who was unconscious. Had probably hit the ground right along with her.

Her socks squished in their boots as she walked, rubbing against the sheathe of her knife. Wherever she was, she was alone. The path was empty, the trees bowing over the weight and pressure of the rain. Aya continued to walk through it, past the pathetic excuse for a dock and up towards a lake and a waterfall. All the while, Aya's pathetically short spikes of hair drooped lower and lower with rain and lower towards her shoulders and the marks spread like spiderwebs.

Little stitch spiderwebs, never seeming to stop.

As she reached the edge of the lake, something flopped miserably at the tiny dock. Red scales shone in the sudden flash of lightning. The magikarp let out a desperate wheeze for air, croaking at her with the largest pupils she'd seen on one in her life.

Aya regarded it a moment, her hands starting to shake from the weight of the water. Then she knelt and scooped up the fish. It flopped in her arms, shaking and groaning its rage to the world. Taking a few steps to the lake, she lifted the giant fish over her head.

"Okay buddy," she whispered over the roar of the waterfall, feeling the words on her teeth as they chattered. "You know what to do. Splash!"

Aya threw. The magikarp splashed and bounced like a stone over a smooth pond, dragged up into the waterfall. As it rose higher and higher, her hearing aids began to _whine_ , screeching louder and louder with a tinny little voice adding,

"Warning, unknown energy interference. Warning, unknown pokemon type detected. Cannot interpret. Energy interference detected, unknown pokemon detected unknown unknown unnnnnnknnoooo- _crrrcckk_!"

The tinny voice turned into a screech and dead silent, all in the span of a few seconds, and once again, her ears filled with the sound of the rain and the grumbles of the earth.

From her right wrist, her nav device vibrated with a soft thrum on her hand. She lifted it up. Aya was really gonna have to send her dads the X-Transceiver when she got back. The nav seemed to work fine. Suspiciously fine, in fact. Once she got out of here and back to a steady PC, she'd deal with this. They needed a way to contact her on the go, if this was what her journey was looking like.

The small watch unfolded to a larger screen, which read "Downloading Rift data…" in soft white over chilling black.

 _Rift?_ Zetta had mentioned a Rift. She'd fallen into it?

"Download complete. Location: Rift Dragon Gate. Code: Evo. Analysis of Rift complete, would you like to see the information?"

Aya glanced up as the little shadow of the magikarp continued to rise towards the top. She tapped yes.

"Rift Gyarados, a water type. Born from the rage of all the magikarp in Goldenwood Lake, they rise up to mourn their regret of being unable to fly. Its ability is Intimidate."

As she finished reading those lines, there was a nearly silent splash.

Aya looked up to see the lake hiss with steam. It was starting to boil over. "Shit," she whispered. Gripping Pich tight, she threw the pichu and her pokeballs as close as she could to the nearest tree and bolted the other way. Pich squeaked terror, but was safely behind a tree as the monster rose up from the water. Aya felt her feet burn as they were drenched.

The gyarados _roared._

* * *

Melia had never expected today would turn out like this. It was just supposed to be a fun last day with a new friend, she was supposed to start her work as a gym leader, _that was all that was supposed to happen._

Instead she was here, cowering behind the garbodor her friends had smacked down and accidentally created. It swung an arm at the Zepto monster again, which stumbled and snarled, digging its foreclaws into the ground. At her side sat eevee. Not her eevee, but… they looked similar. Underneath a strangely visible film of violet, there was a sparkle to the fur that only came from the recessive shiny genes, that made them sparkle in the light and stand out in a crowd with differing colors.

Just like hers. Unlike hers, however, the softly purple eyes held complete disinterest in her. She rubbed her aching wrist. She was pretty sure that Zepto thing had broken it. She wasn't going to look at it to tell. She could barely touch it without touching something-

She'd just look when she got home. If she could go home again.

What if Jan knew? What if Amanda knew? What if they were in on this, like…

Melia bit her lip. _Dad wouldn't work with this person, these people. He… loves pokemon. He studies them, doesn't… destroy them._

 _He wouldn't do this!_

And yet he'd been insistent she come here before she go. And take pictures of a wall. A wall that had suddenly made a passage.

Something was wrong somewhere.

Hapi chirruped by her ear. The togetic's head cocked a little and Melia made herself smile. "I'm okay… kind of."

There was an ugly squelching noise as her wrist throbbed again and again, louder and louder in her heartbeat in her ears. Zepto roared again in front of her, but the Garbodor just didn't budge.

"I swear," she whispered. "When this is over, I'm catching you."

Garbodor gurgled. It seemed like he understood that well enough.

Melia raised her head to look at the ugly bruise in the sky. Aya hadn't come out yet. What if… what if she was gone forever? It would be her fault. She'd dragged her into this mess.

"Please… someone, let her be okay…" she breathed. "Please… God or somebody… please let her come back safely."

Most people would be perturbed by this. The two of them hadn't known each other for more than a couple of days. There wasn't really any need to be that emotionally invested in her, especially since she'd recently burned that wrist (that was now broken) and was revealed to have superpowers she couldn't control _and_ had calmly made the suggestion that she kill another human being. That was a person you should stay far away from.

But… the idea of it made Melia's stomach churn, a part of her mind violently disagree. All of that aside, she'd still cared about Melia. She'd not turned away forever and left Melia to the wolves or these bastards who turned their own partners into monsters. She'd _stayed_.

Something deep in Melia's core, maybe her soul, warmed to that notion, the nostalgia of gripping a hand a little bigger than her own, the steady back of someone in front of her standing to protect, to defend and speaking so firm and strong against a real monster.

"No one can make that happen."

Melia almost jumped out of her skin as she opened her eyes (when had they closed?) to see a little boy with white hair staring at her. Aside from the hair color and the one bit that curled up like an imp's smile, he seemed like a perfectly normal child. Plain clothes, a shirt and shorts, shoes that were falling off his feet, pale skin. He seemed like an ordinary little boy. And yet looking closer, he seemed a little sickly, a little too pale, a little too faded away.

Then she saw his eyes, rings of green and red and black, staring at her like she was nothing but a bug he had let out from its terrarium.

"God can't save her," he said. His voice was high and pleasant and of course, very young, but it was ruined by the complete deadpan of his voice. "We cannot make her be all right. It's too late for that. But you can help her right now, if you want."

"How?" And later she would question where the little boy had come from, when he'd arrived, how no one had seen him, or anything really. But right now, all she cared about was doing something other than sitting here and sniffling at the pain in her arm, the misery of her situation, and hope futilely that Zetta and his monster just got tired and left.

The boy smiled, an expression like wax, rarely used and uncomfortable. "Pray to her, little mortal," he said with a wave of a hand. "Pray to the baby god and let her _burn."_

Melia had no idea what that even meant, but as garbodor grunted in pain, she closed her eyes and made herself believe, made herself pray.

She didn't see the boy vanish the second she bowed her head.

* * *

Lightning struck the tree Aya had been crouched behind a second ago, forcing her to run to another. Overhead, Trinity screeched, a white sheen over her wings as she dodged another blow from the furious looking dragon. The gyarados' teeth crackled with electricity as it snarled, slobber dripping from its mouth. The dull color of its scales made it hard to see without the light from the storm, barring its full sclera red eyes.

Aya whistled. "Down, down!"

Trinity squawked. _Heard ya, ma'am._ She spiraled downward, joined by Cheshire, who was firing hearts at gyarados' middle, covering the torn up form of Red. The fomantis was shivering in pain, ice half crept across half its body. The other half was tattered leaves and- something the center surely could fix. It had happened so fast, Aya'd only been able to let out more of her team to buy time.

Gyarados roared again, raising its tail and swinging it towards shore. Pich shrieked and fled. Isaiah's ball trembled in Aya's grip but she couldn't risk it. Isaiah would be on the same field as a rampaging gyarados in a small lake. She couldn't risk it. He'd _die._

Aya took a knee, picked up a rock and smacked the enemy in the head with it. It turned its head and Aya threw herself forward as it did, tackling the vulnerable Red into her arms and out of sight into the trees. She quickly returned him to his ball, the little guy shivering so hard his spare leaves were falling off. "Good work." She settled the ball back into her bag.

A murmuring in the back of her mind made her turn. But of course, no one was there, she was alone but for her pokemon and this monster

Pich's squeaking made her turn again. The little mouse was sparking, having latched onto the serpentine form of the gyarados. His tiny body exploded with electricity and the roar of pain that ensued would have been great if the writhing and shaking hadn't thrown the baby clear off of it. Aya leaped to catch Pich now, hitting the ground and rolling.

"I can heal, that doesn't mean shit doesn't hurt…" she groaned. Pich grinned weakly up at her, body still sparking with stray electricity. "You crazy baby, what were you doing?"

Pich blinked black eyes at her and squeaked. _Helping Mama, what else?_

Her eyes misted over. "Silly billywig," Aya said, making to stand up.

A very large mouth, with very sharp fangs opened its jaws over her head. Pich leaped towards it and exploded with electricity again, sending it careening back into the water. Aya caught Pich again, who whined with pain.

"Why doesn't it just fly," Aya muttered. "Does… because it lost the flying type mean…?" She leaped up to move, but her legs throbbed, all the rain heavy on her knees and spine and she stumbled because everything was burning. She lost her grip on Pich just as gyarados' great tail swiped through the air and sent her across the rift and into the water on the other side.

Fuck.

Again. She was drowning again. Drowning was such a shitty way to die, she knew. And if she had a little more energy, she could reach Puff or Isaiah, but…

Her arms ached. Her body throbbed with the weight of the water, the burning on her insides. She just wanted to close her eyes and sink.

" _No!"_ screamed in her skull in seven voices. " _Don't you dare! Don't you ever!"_

" _We need you! Don't you dare!"_

Isaiah's ball burst open and her brionne kicked up underneath her stone of a body. Melia's voice screamed in her ear to keep her eyes open, to live, live _live_ -

It took Cheshire and Trinity with Isaiah's help to haul her onto the ground. Aya coughed and spat, rolling to vomit up the water that had gotten in her system.

"Thanks guys," she wheezed. "You're the best."

Cheshire and Trinity chittered at her various sounds of _of course_ and _you're welcome._

A flash of light startled both pokemon and made Aya turn her head. Pich stood at the other side of the clearing, glaring down the Gyarados trying to pull itself out of the water and gouge through the shore. His cheeks shone a brilliant white. Comically he crouched on all fours.

Gyarados roared and Pich charged. Electricity thundered around his tiny body and it turned more and more white the closer he got until he was simply a shooting star that struck the gyarados right in the throat. The force of the impact threw both pokemon into the waterfall. There was a sickening _crunch_ as rocks tumbled down from the top of the falls.

Trinity squawked and sped over, catching what had to be Pich as fell from the recoil. Even the sparks dancing along his fur didn't phase her, though his weight did. She flew back to Aya, who took the pokemon into her arms and returned both exhausted fliers. Pich grinned at her again, soaking and exhausted. She glanced over at the gyarados, who didn't seem to be moving.

Aya managed a laugh. "Good work buddy. Could have said something about having volt tackle though."

Her newly evolved pikachu gave a loud squeak of assurance.

Then the world crumbled all around her and she and her pokemon all fell down.

Aya, for a moment, thought they would fall forever. Then a small hand, bigger than her own, grabbed her drenched shirt and pulled.

She opened her eyes to golden leaves and trees and Melia's face staring worriedly down at her. Her pokemon, the two conscious anyway, were just as close.

Melia managed to smile. "You made it."

Aya smiled weakly. "Somehow." Before she could say more, her eevee trotted over and made herself comfortable on her other arm. "Hey you," she said.

Eevee chirped.

* * *

 ** _A/N:_** We live! I apologize for the long pauses but I'm working on getting a small buffer in place so I can update twice a month. At least up to Keta. Let us pray v12 doesn't come out by then... or does! Either way.

Anyway, around here is where I'm going to stop pretending Aya _isn't_ going to be both OP as heck and simultaneous you never want to be her ever. This doesn't need to be a nuzlocke for me to ruin her day, her week, her month, and her year. The water is _no joke._ Also like, the Dimensional Gyarados is nerfed immensely, but it's still a zombie gyarados with the three fang moves. Fomantis are barely glass cannons, it literally knocked out Sadie the Rockruff (who yes is the Duskenruff bc I didn't feel like showing the trade) when I was trying to do sand attack set up in one run, most of her other pokemon would be useless here. So really, why not have super Pich save the day and knock himself out in the process?

I'm not sure if it's clear in fic, but Alola has specifically _not happened yet_ in timeline. We are firmly in X/Y timeline rn. Hence why Aya, who seems to have a knack for knowing more about a lot of things than she should, has never heard of Type: Null, nor knows the significance of there being one trying to murder her.

Anyway, two more things: next chapter is where things are definitely M, no turning back, do not say I did not warn you. I also mark that chapter as, whoops I may have screwed up the main canon and it's only down from there.

Finally, and this is the biggie: for peeps reading, would you prefer if I just did all of Rejuv here in ignited, or would it be easier to read if I just split it by Acts? (I believe Blacksteeple is end of Act 1, end of Terajuma for act 2, and so on). Let me know in the reviews, along with everything else you think is important! Thanks everybody! See ya!

 **Active Team**

 _Eevee_ (Shadow Type, unsafe) lvl 5, Moves: Shadow Rush, Growl, Covet,?

 _Isaiah_ (brionne) Torrent, lvl 20 Moves: Tackle, Water Gun, Aqua Jet, Disarming Voice

 _Cheshire_ (swoobat) Unaware, lvl 20 Moves: Confusion, Assurance, Gust, Heart Stamp

 _Trinity_ (fletchinder) Big Pecks, lvl 22 Moves: Tackle, Ember, Quick Attack, Peck

 _Red_ (fomantis) Contrary, lvl 20 Moves: Fury Cutter, Leafage, Razor Leaf, Ingrain

 _Sadie_ (rockruff) Own Tempo, lvl 22 Moves: Tackle, Sand Attack, Bite, Rock Throw

 _Pich_ (pikachu) Lightningrod, lvl 16, Moves: Volt Tackle, Nuzzle, Double Kick, Sweet Kiss

 **Borrowing**

 _Puff_ (jigglypuff) Friend Guard, lvl 46: Double-Edge, Hyper Voice, Gyro Ball, Toxic


	17. Chapter 17 - What We See From People

_Warnings: body horror, death, violence, fire, blood, Jenner, dehumanization, magic, extra worldbuilding. Please heed the first two warnings. If you cannot read these two things, comment and I will explain at the start of next chapter._

* * *

 _Chapter Seventeen - What We See From People_

"So what happened?"

"Garbodor saved us and drove Zetta off. Unfortunately the gyarados turned back into a rift when it spat you out, but…" She trailed off and looked away.

Aya clicked her tongue and kept walking. "We got away, that's the main thing."

Melia nodded and focused on the train, only a short distance away. She did not focus on the tiny off rhythm thuds of wet shoes on grass, nor the noises of wings flapping behind her as Trinity the fletchinder tried to handle things herself for her drenched trainer. Melia made herself keep walking, glancing at the girl who was trailing after her.

Aya was stumbling. her left foot dragged a little, but she kept her head up and kept on walking.

Eventually, unable to stand the proud set of the small shoulders before her, Melia tried to be a decent human being and help her not do that, but admittedly, her eyes kept trailing to the new _marks_ going up and down her arms, the visible part of her neck, what could be seen of her ankles and all over her fa- were those over her _eyes?_ And therefore, she had to work very hard to keep her hands where they were.

"Relax," Aya said after a couple fumbles of her wrists. "They're not scars anymore. It's just flesh marks, like when you get swirls on your arms when you sleep."

"... what?"

Aya stared at her aghast a moment. Then she shook her head. "Right, people don't read much into human biology that's not related to pokemon biology. Here I'll put it like this. Humans have poison in their bodies."

"They what?" Melia tried to remember to not look at Aya, and flushed with the effort of not doing it.

"Yeah humans are, as a penpal of my mom's once said, 'shitty normal and poison types' and that's why regular bites down on human flesh and blood make everyone except poison types sick. It's the saliva in humans that does it, similar to what causes most pokemon to be able to learn Toxic by machine. Everyone can be poisonous. Even me. Even you."

Melia gaped a moment. "You're insulting me."

"Stating fact can only be an insult if it's twisted that way." They reached the train and Aya returned her pokemon. Melia did her own, much to the chagrin of Hapi. "And right now, we have no proof for or against. So the likelihood is that humans are just shitty normal types and no one's really figured out how to make them not shitty. The poison cannot affect the body of the person it came from. These marks are like that, just imprints as proof that something happened or could happen."

"Stop cursing," Melia said, for lack of anything else to say.

"Started at nine, not stopping now," Aya said, boarding the train without looking back. Melia did however, staring at the red spark gone from the trees, the broken leaves and branches, the dirt path and trampled flowers.

She was leaving it behind, leaving it to adults, stronger people, better than her. But.

"Melia." Aya was looking at her, the marks on her skin vivid in the lights overhead. "Let it go. You said the police were here. Let them take care of it."

Some kind of rebellion rose up in her throat, from the distrust of almost no police being here, no understanding of what was and what is. "But what if they don't do it right?"

It sounded stupid now that she said that, especially not that. She wasn't a baby anymore, what the hell was the matter with her?

Aya looks at her up and down and says, "Well, what would be right?"

Melia opened her mouth and shut it slowly, as they settled back into the seats of the train. Somehow, the time between this morning and now made the upholstery itch at her neck and shoulders. "Arresting those people," she finally said as the train began to speed away. The car was empty but for them, the people left behind and giving testimonies. Melia had bumrushed hers for the moment because Aya was gone and she didn't really look to be in much shape to give one anyway once she got back. "Taking their pokemon, giving them jail time, that sort of thing."

Aya let out a grunt at the idea, sitting up and lifting her head up. "That takes months people don't have the patience for, proof that's now sitting in my PC, and trucks that probably were rounded up when the police got there. They could escape into the forest and out of it and get where ever and so on. And they might be bought, I dunno."

"Then why would we ask them for help?"

"Because we're kids," Aya said in the most matter-of-fact voice Melia had ever heard. "And even if they're useless, I want them to think the kid will be stupid enough to get out of the way, rather than reckless enough to put a target on their backs. We're not one-man armies. We're people. Don't sit there and act like you could do anything by yourself because you're indignant enough. Your pokemon are worn out, so are mine. Their lives are worth more than going after chump change."

It stung.

The impassiveness, the utter disinterest stung. The idea of her incompetence buzzed in her like angry bees. She was going to be a gym leader starting tomorrow. Just because she failed a test for an elitist prep school didn't mean she was dumb.

But the idea of her and her exhausted team doing much of anything right now made her slump into her seat with a sigh.

Aya managed a grin and shut her eyes as the train sped up steadily. "How far are we from the city?"

"It's about a two hours by train from here to Gearan if the train's running well. I hear pokemon can do it a little faster." Melia chewed on her lip and settled once more, "But that's without stopping."

"Mm." Aya stretched and leaned back. Then, her eevee popped into view and settled into her lap. "Are you really a shadow?" she asked it. It only yawned at her in response.

"That's a shadow for sure then," Melia asked and saw a nod. "Only well, maybe it's the light, but they seem to be sparkling."

"I can only see purple," Aya admitted, reaching to stroke her back. "Is she shiny?"

She looks like my eevee." Looking around, Melia risked it and released her own. She was a little dirty and bruised, but she licked Melia's fingers enough. Aya silently offered Melia a potion, which she prayed over the fur and rubbed gently into the fur and skin. "Yep," she said, once her eevee was purring in her arms, relief thrumming over her in waves. "Very sparkly, very shiny."

"You infected my baby," Aya said with mock outrage.

Melia's eye twitched. "I did not."

Aya laughed at her.

Melia made to relax in her chair. "I'm going to rest for a bit." She affected her voice as haughtily as she could manage, as if this entire discussion was beneath her. "You should do the same. It's gonna be another hour."

Aya nodded. Melia closed her eyes.

* * *

Melia's ears were ringing.

She wasn't quite sure why. She was sure she had been using the window as a very poorly made pillow not even twenty minutes ago. Now, her ears were ringing, smoke tickled her nose and there was a faint breeze in her hair. She opened her eyes-

Below her was a smoking pile of metal and plastic, twisted and warped, melting into the track of the trains. There was… nothing left of the train.

Reality and panic set in.

 _Don't look._

The words weren't in her head really, but Melia couldn't say she'd heard them out loud either. They just… existed. _It was just us on that train. We're fine._

"Aya?" she breathed.

 _Somehow._ The voice sounded weary. _Tell me the way, or you're gonna die. I dunno how long i can keep doing… whatever this is._

Melia swallowed. Her throbbing arm was suddenly no longer hurting at all. "Right. Keep going east."

 _Gotcha._

And something swept downward, than upward, like wings. Like wings meant for a creature much larger than a child. They continued, steady and quick until eventually the sound faded and they were zipping forward. Melia risked glancing at her arm once more. The arm she'd meant to look at before she'd fallen asleep.

There wasn't even a scar. Her fingers flexed and curled with ease, like the arm had never been hurt since she'd been born with it.

"Aya?" she repeated.

Aya didn't respond. Something shuffled on her shirt. Aya's eevee clung to the back of it and looked at her, as if it knew what she was thinking. As if it didn't like it.

Well, that wasn't the pokemon's business now was it?

 _Which way?_ The girl's voice sounded like a croak.

"Turn east again and just keep going. We'll be at city limits soon, at this rate."

 _I hope so. This isn't good._

"Can you rest?"

 _No. Someone will see. I can't let people see. But I need… I need you to do me a favor._

"At this point I'll do nearly anything." Melia swallowed. "What is it?"

 _Describe your bedroom to me. As clearly as you can. That's our landing spot._

"I'm not gonna ask how we're going to land there." But Melia closed her eyes and thought about it.

The movie posters plastered over her drawers and mirrors. The computer that runs on sputtering and older systems known to man that her father wouldn't replace. Her desk with the suitcase on her chair, clasped closed with the tickets to the side. The photos with her and her father, the notes between them on long days. The piece of Hapi's egg shell put in a jar, the warm blanket set decked in checkered plaid. The worn clefairy doll.

The faint smell of Dad's favorite air freshener.

Melia's eyes welled up with tears. She missed him right now. She missed him so _much._ She was almost willing to forgive it all, so long as he still loved her. They could work through the rest. They had to be able to work through the rest.

A quiet humming filled her ears, a low sound like a flute, down at her feet and rising up her skin. It grew to a soft coo, a gentle warble. And then on.

And on.

Carried on the wind, sweet as an oran. A warble that grew and fell, a trill reaching into her body and undoing her, marking and unmaking, molding her from clay.

"Aya?" Melia whispered.

The song swelled within her in answer.

Aya's voice grew more human for a moment, words of fire and storms, words of love and longing, and then they fell once more into the rhythm of the unseen drum, the call of the trilling bird.

"You said you carried Ho-oh's will," Melia whispered.

The song thrummed in answer. _And it wasn't a lie. It just wasn't all of the truth._

 _And that truth is something you don't need to know._

* * *

Melia awoke again with a jolt. They weren't in the sky now. In fact, she was looking at her bed, her walls, her floor. "We're back," she said as her feet gently touched the floor. "How did we-"

The warm breeze was gone, the air smells of smoke and something… something tangy, almost meat. Melia turned to find her new friend. "Aya, how did you-"

She covered her mouth, muffling the scream as the girl's body, torn to lesions and _charred skin_ seemed to start folding in on itself, turning from simple ashy grey and cold black and lava red and just pulsing. She could see her veins moving, expanding and contracting and something _bubbling_ , beneath. Popping skin, empty eye sockets, images that were sewn into her brain.

Aya, or what had to be her, _breathed._ The motions were small and fast. There were no hairs on her head.

Her bag, beaten and sooty but just fine, sat with eevee's mouth on the strap nearby. The eevee didn't move, merely watched.

"Please," croaked from the body on the floor. "Bo-" She wheezed, and a bleeding, blistered, mangled hand struggled to rise. "B-Boots, _please._ "

Melia nodded, shook her head, something. "I-I'll get dad," she said, and, as she would be ashamed of later, bolted out of the room. She heard Aya croak a plea out again, but she didn't move back towards it. She couldn't.

"Dad!" she shouted! "Dad, help, it's an emergency-"

She reached his recording area, his favorite desk with the best camera angles, and found that he was not alone.

A woman leaned on his desk, over him. The heels helped, but her father didn't seem intimidated. A far cry from last night to where he had been nauseous and wheezy. Now, he almost looked bored.

"You really shouldn't have hung up on me," she said, in a voice that was supposed to make people feel bad.

"And you shouldn't be so obvious in a public place. I have new trainers coming in nearly every day. You do know Jan checks the cameras." A flicker of annoyance. Her father… he never really sounded like that, unless he was talking to donors. Because he hated that. "And he doesn't particularly like you either."

A scoff. "What, are you going soft now because we _let you have a baby?_ A baby you hid from your friends and coworkers I might add. What, were you ashamed of her?"

Melia's blood ran cold.

"I do believe I'd been given the orders to keep her quiet, right?" Her father didn't even twitch. "Considering, oh, I don't know, I had no experience with kids? it would have been suspicious. Madelis, you're supposed to be smart."

"So are you, _professor."_ Her voice took on a syrupy tone. "You really just forget your place."

"Not quite as much as you do. Besides, I did what you asked." He shook his head. "What more do you want from me?"

Melia inched closer. Her heart was pounding.

"I was just checking if your heart was really into this. I heard you collapsed last night." The syrupy noise sounded even thicker than before. Melia swallowed, half-expecting something sticky in her throat. "Is the burden so big and heavy for our dear professor? You can't be that old yet. Thirty-nine or so, yes?"

Her father laughed. Not the belly laugh of pride, not his giggles with her about her days in the gym. This was hot, hot, hot.

"There's nothing I can do about that," he said, without fear. "But I've met something bigger than you, something more terrifying, something that will make you quake. Compared to this, all of you…" She watched him shrug his shoulders. "There is nothing you can do."

"Oh and I thought we had an understanding-" She reached over, climbing on the large desk that she as a child had used to scribble homework on. "We keep you alive, we give you what you want, and then we take back what belongs to us. You don't betray us. This came from us." She reached out and touched his neck. "Are you telling me you're willing to throw away everything? All these people, all your work, because of some unknown variable?"

"For Melia?" Her father smiled. " _Without question."_

The room seemed to shiver.

"I see." She paused on her knees. "You talk a good game Jenner. It's a shame you're just a pawn. Putting on an act for the cameras. You're a fantastic liar."

Her father remained silent.

Melia thought fast and raced to the front. The sound of the sliding door made them turn, and she come running forward. It was hard to control her breathing, hard to not laugh at the start of anger that burned in those red eyes, not blood red, not chilling red, just red like construction paper, easily to cut.

She whipped around towards her father. "You- she was supposed to be in the forest."

"And I was!" she said, a shudder clattering through her bones. It was true. he had sent her there. To be captured by then. But then, but then-

" _Someone asked me to look after you."_

Had that been dad? Even back then, yesterday even, had that been dad? The snag machine in her bag, the mural in the back? Had her dad… used her?

Anger filled her belly like cement. Why was he like this? He was always gentle with her sure, but everything, everything was a test, a game, a puzzle. Sometimes for her, sometimes to help him. There were some times where she wasn't sure he looked at her and saw a child at all.

She watched, both of them watched, the triumph burn over her father's face. "I knew they could do it," he said. Then his eyes snapped to Melia. "Where are they?"

 _Where is it?_ seemed to linger in the air. "That's why I'm here!" and the horror threatened her again, the calm she'd managed to gather in herself. "Come quick dad, she's hurt!"

Dad nodded and got up from his chair. The woman's wrist flicked and out came a great, slobbering dog, its drool seeping holes into her father's jacket, paws the size of her shoulder bone at his chest. His chair toppled with him in it, leaving him pinned down and held by rows of large, sharp teeth.

"That's better," the woman said softly, smiling at her. "Come on now, Melia. it's time to come with me. Your dad will be fine, in fact, he'll be better if you just come quietly this time. We'll forgive him. After all, you're in this situation because of him. He's one of us."

Melia watched her father struggle and bunch. He didn't fight anymore, admittedly he had never wanted to, and throwing a houndoom as big as that one would be a struggle, even for him, she imagined.

That said, she had her answer. Hapi was out of her ball in one second, throwing great glowing rocks in the next. "Not a chance! Hold her off, Hapi!"

She got a trill in response, waiting as another glimmer of extrasensory energy threw the woman to the side. she caught herself on the desk with a snarl, her houndoom sent off dad. Just a little. It was enough for him to scramble to his feet and run for her.

"Where," he wheezed, eyes burning and holes spreading on his coat.

"My room," she said, calling out her buneary now. He grumbled with exhaustion but still bounced obediently enough.

Dad nodded and scurried around the corner.

The woman was back on her feet now, smiling nastily. "Oh-ho, do you think you're going to hit a human?"

Melia grimaced, nerves in her stomach. She'd never done it before. she'd never wanted to. You didn't send your pokemon to attack people!

"Ancient Power!" she ordered and Hapi obeyed. Then Melia grabbed buneary and returned him, racing into her room with Hapi and locking the door.

As soon as she was inside she made the mistake of taking a deep breath. Melia only managed to gag on it on the way out.

The body, Aya's body, was still there, crackling and bubbling and _bleeding now_ into the carpet. Dad was right up next to it -her, her her-, fingers brushing against the skin of the- the legs, no, where the feet we-

The boots. She had talked about boots. Why.

Dad reached into the charred remains of the thick footwear and pulled out… a knife?

It didn't seem particularly special at first glance. A pretty hilt, a slender blade, a delicate looking sheathe… but why wasn't it a lump of metal and stuff or melted or… anything?

"Do you swear?" Melia jolted out of her thoughts. "Do you promise me? To do all you can, to do all you must?"

Aya… or what might be Aya… rattled in her slumped mess on the floor. It took her a minute to realize, that was what laughter could sound like. "I'm not doing it for nothing."

"My research is yours," he said, urgently. Behind her, Melia heard a thump on her door. "My soul is yours. My life is yours. Anything here, it's yours. Do you swear to me?"

"I won't promise the impossible," she rasped and was it Melia's imagination or did she sound clearer? "Not for the possible?"

"Please," he said, and for a moment, Melia thought tears were on his face. "She is everything to me. Worth more than anyone here, more than anything in existence. Please."

 _No Dad,_ she wanted to say through the bile in her throat, the acid in her mouth. _No. I'm not helpless, I'm not weak. I'm not a thing you can lock up and let out when you please. I am not!_

The eyeless head, the noseless skull shifted, as if it, as if she, could read minds all of a sudden. "I see. Then I so swear… now… please. Make it quick."

Her father unsheathed the dagger. And it was beautiful, a beautiful iridescent series of colors that did not, could not exist in anything she knew.

And before her eyes, he raised it high in both hands. Melia reached out to the other side, to grab his arm-

He stabbed it down. It shuddered, cracking the pure black thing that could be a chest cavity, past the ribs and down into the heart with a single splash of sizzling blood.

The girl twitched once and lay still.

Melia's scream died in her mouth.

"It'll be fine, Melia," he said, as if he'd just noticed her. "She'll be fine. We need to be ready to fight our way out of here. Madelis can't be the only one here. Are your pokemon okay?"

Melia stared at him, aghast. "No," she whispered. "This can't be happening. This isn't real."

He looked at her slowly. "Calm down Melia."

"Calm down," she repeated. "You just _killed someone._ You just killed my friend."

"Don't worry about it," Dad said, and his voice seemed, almost far away.

She shook her head. "No. No more of this. I'm… I'm getting out of here. I… you… you're not my dad. You're… you're a _monster._ "

He looked at her, in the eyes, none of the gentle, reckless, overworked old man. None of his playful forgetful guy act. Just a cold looking, stern man. "Yes," he agreed softly. "And what about it? I'm trying to save you, Melia."

"Yeah?" And there was the anger. She was good with anger. She could _handle_ anger. "For what? For some big experiment, some important purpose?! This is all for you, isn't it? It always is! Whenever it's inconvenient for me, I come anyway! When's the last time you- no. No! I'm not gonna hear your excuses! I don't care! You just… you killed the person you called to save my life! What is wrong with you?!" He opened his mouth and she shook her head. "No, no I'm done. No more! Hapi!" She grabbed her pokemon's leg as she appeared. "Metronome!"

Three flashes of light, and her room was gone. Her so-called father was gone. Her friends were gone. And… her new friend, Aya… her body was gone.

 _I won't let them get away with this,_ she promised herself. _I'll avenge you. I'll take them down. Whoever they are, Team Xen, they'll pay._

* * *

 _ **A/N:**_ I hope you all heeded the warnings. I really do. It won't be better from here on in. Roughly five chapters of the shipwrecked section remain.

No pokemon team changes this time. So until next time. See you then!


End file.
